How to Write an Elevator Pitch for a Pitching Event

9 July, 202511 July, 2025Leave a comment

With BluePit coming up on July 13th and DVPit back again, coming in October, I wanted to repost an updated version of Tips and Tricks for Pitching as well as write a short overview of just HOW to write some pitches, you know, without ChatGPT regurgitating other people’s pitches into generic slop and selling them off as your own.

This is a shortened version of my StoryCadet class on pitching your story to agents and editors. For information on my courses, visit storycadet.com or fill out this interest survey!

What you need to know about your work

WATCh and COG: Character, Obstacle, Goal

WATCh is my mnemonic for figuring out the basic elements of your novel: World, Answer, Time, Character. World is setting. Answer is the question or problem that the story sets out to solve. Time is the cause and effect or what happens in the story to get to the answer. Character is the main character whose story we are following.

COG is my abbreviation for thinking about story structure: your character needs a goal and then obstacles that separate them from that goal.

Character

Whose story is this, really? Even if you have two or more POV characters, your elevator pitch likely needs to focus on one at a time.

Think about the following:

Who is your character?
Where do they come from? What is their species or cultural background?
What do they spend their time doing?
How old are they?
Why do they want what they want?

Come up with adjective–noun descriptions of who they are and what they do that you can use in your elevator pitch. Four irrepressible retirees spend their time solving cold case murders for fun, but their causal sleuthing takes a thrilling turn when they find themselves with a real whodunit on their hands. (The Thursday Murder Club).

Goal, Obstacles, Stakes

The goal is what the main character wants, or more importantly, needs.

Obstacles are the conflict or what keeps the character from their goal.

Stakes are what the character is afraid might happen. What could the character lose if they don’t achieve their goal? They can also show an internal dilemma: what they might lose if they do achieve their goal.

Genre & Age Category

What genre is your book? If it’s science fiction or fantasy, what sub-genre of speculative fiction?

What ages is your story written for? This doesn’t always correlate to the age of the main characters, mind you. It correlates with the maturity of your story’s voice and content.

What comparative titles—books, movies, TV shows, songs—have a similar audience or vibe? This could show up in a “_____ meets _____” statement: The Sandlot meets Inside Out (Win or Lose)

World

When and where does your story take place? What adjectives and nouns can you use that are specific to that setting or culture? A former Padawan reunites with her Jedi Master to investigate a series of galactic crimes but discovers the forces they confront are more sinister than they ever anticipated. (The Acolyte)

Concept or Premise

What makes your story unique from any other story in that same genre?

You might start this as a “What if…” question and turn it into a statement: Three improv actors are asked to go undercover by the police in London’s criminal underworld. (Deep Cover)

Your concept might also show up in your title: Monsters vs Aliens or Sharknado.

Voice

The secret to the best pitches are voice. Use specific, not generic, words to help your audience understand the tone of your story and your voice as a writer. Is this story funny, sentimental, modern, gritty, action-packed, or fantastical? Choose words that fit the tone.

Case Studies

When looking at examples of pitches, I recommend that you don’t use the following examples:

franchises—they expect some previous knowledge of the world and may be vague
blurbs from Netflix or streaming sources—while many are good, many are truly terrible. Check out your favorite films or TV series and decide if they do justice to the story

Here are examples from Jurassic World: Rebirth, the latest movie in a blockbuster franchise, and The Fall Guy, a non-franchise original movie.

Rotten Tomatoes Blurbs

Five years after the events of Jurassic World Dominion, the planet’s ecology has proven largely inhospitable to dinosaurs. Those remaining exist in isolated equatorial environments with climates resembling the one in which they once thrived. The three most colossal creatures within that tropical biosphere hold the key to a drug that will bring miraculous life-saving benefits to humankind.

This is mostly about the dinosaurs and the world of the story. It tells us nothing about the main, human characters, though it does give us their goal: a life-saving drug. It also uses so many large words, it makes me think it was written by a PhD candidate.

He’s a stuntman, and like everyone in the stunt community, he gets blown up, shot, crashed, thrown through windows and dropped from the highest of heights, all for our entertainment. And now, fresh off an almost career-ending accident, this working-class hero has to track down a missing movie star, solve a conspiracy and try to win back the love of his life while still doing his day job. What could possibly go right?

This one includes a tiny love-letter to the stunt community (what the movie is really about), the phrase “working-class hero,” and a humorous zinger at the end. I think this one nails its audience the best of all these examples.

IMDB Summaries

Five years post-Jurassic World: Dominion (2022), an expedition braves isolated equatorial regions to extract DNA from three massive prehistoric creatures for a groundbreaking medical breakthrough.

All it tells us about the main characters are that they are “an expedition.” However, it tells us what they are doing, what stands in their way, and what their goal is. It also uses the word “braves” as a verb to show us that the expedition is full of brave people. Something generic like “travels” or “explores” isn’t as powerful here.

A stuntman, fresh off an almost career-ending accident, has to track down a missing movie star, solve a conspiracy and try to win back the love of his life while still doing his day job.

While this summary takes some liberty (I remember some time passing between the accident and the adventure), this tells us who the main character is, what the stakes are (more accidents, losing the love of his life), and what his goals are. The main obstacle here though seems to be “while still doing his day job” which, while funny, isn’t as serious as some of the obstacles he does face, like murderers and evil executives and lots and lots of painful stunts.

Google Summaries

Zora Bennett leads a team of skilled operatives to the most dangerous place on Earth, an island research facility for the original Jurassic Park. Their mission is to secure genetic material from dinosaurs whose DNA can provide life-saving benefits to mankind. As the top-secret expedition becomes more and more risky, they soon make a sinister, shocking discovery that’s been hidden from the world for decades.

This one focuses on one main character, though it just gives us her name and not anything about her character. It tells us her mission and hints at the obstacles and stakes, but it still has very generic wording.

After leaving the business one year earlier, battle-scarred stuntman Colt Seavers springs back into action when the star of a big studio movie suddenly disappears. As the mystery surrounding the missing actor deepens, Colt soon finds himself ensnared in a sinister plot that pushes him to the edge of a fall more dangerous than any stunt.

This one gives us “battle-scarred stuntman” as well as the MC’s name. It includes “springs back into action,” “fall,” and “stunt” to reiterate the genre. This one doesn’t include his love life, though.

The Trailers

If you watch the first or second trailer for Rebirth, Zora comes off as a little cocky, guaranteeing survival. None of the pitches above include reference to the civilian family, and maybe none of them need to, but adding the complication of civilians does add stakes to her personal story—can she guarantee the safety of a bunch of civilians, including children?

Now watch the trailer for The Fall Guy. How would you choose which goals, stakes, and obstacles to include in this pitch?

Challenge: After watching the trailers or the movies, write your own pitches about Rebirth and/or The Fall Guy in the comments.

Write Your Own

Write six different elevator pitches for your story or work in progress. Feeling brave? Add them to the comments and tell other commenters which of their six you like the best! Let’s keep it positive here—we’re all trying our best.

Tips and Tricks for Writers’ Pitching Contests

8 July, 202512 July, 20251 Comment

Or, an updated version of my ancient post on general tips and tricks for pitching on Twitter.

How to Find Pitch Events
Tips for Pitching
The Importance of Hashtags
After the Pitch Party
My Personal SFFpit Results
Analysis of my Personal SFFpit Results
Final Thoughts

How to Find Pitch Events

Pitch events are constantly coming and going, even faster than the rate of social media sites and apps (R.I.P. Writing Twitter).

To find current events, I recommend searching for accounts that post current and upcoming events, and following those accounts. I also recommend just following other writers on BlueSky or other social media apps. When they start posting pitches, check out the hashtags and find out about the contest!

Lists and Accounts to follow:

My list of BlueSky Pitching Events, which I update more frequently than this blog
BluePit on BlueSky, which posts its own event as well as other pitching events
DVPit on BlueSky
Path to Publication on BlueSky
UnhingedPit on BlueSky
Revise & Resub on BlueSky and Threads

Current events as of 2025:

BluePit, for writers and storytellers, in July on BlueSky
WickedPit, for dark, twisty books—gothic, horror, thrillers, and morally gray fantasy, in July on BlueSky
DVPit, for pitches from marginalized voices that have been historically underrepresented in publishing, in October—Read DVPit’s page to learn whether you qualify.
P2Ppit, for pretty much everybody, in January on BlueSky and X
SmallPitch, for unagented authors pitching to small presses, in July, on its website
SmallPitch, for marginalized authors pitching to small presses, in January, on its website
UnhingedPit, for pretty much everybody, dates not specified, on BlueSky

On hiatus:

SFFpit, for Science Fiction and Fantasy works, biannual

Retired pitch parties:

PitMad, for pretty much everybody, quarterly
PitchMAS, for pretty much everybody, twice per year

Tips for Pitching

A hook can be an interesting main character (MC), conflict, stakes, fresh premise, or voice. Pitch whichever is strongest in your novel.

It’s impossible to convey how unique your MC, setting, conflict, premise, or voice is all at once, in one tweet. Which is the MOST different compared to other novels?

If your pitches are falling flat, adjust your selling point. You might be trying to pass a swan story off as a duck one.

Elevator pitches are so short, you have to pick your focus. Character, stakes, conflict, premise, voice…pick two per pitch.

That way, if an agent goes to your feed, they don’t see the same pitch repeated, and they see that 1) your novel is complex, 2) you can pitch in a variety of ways (i.e. you’re a skilled writer), 3) you are open to variance in writing (i.e. you’d be willing to do necessary rewrites)

During Pitch Parties, you might be able to pitch once or twice per hour. That’s 12 to 24 different opportunities to pitch! Vary them by focus and by hashtags, but only use relevant hashtags. Please be sure to check the rules of each event.

You might be able to use a tool like Buffer or Later to 1) schedule your pitches beforehand and 2) see their effectiveness afterward.

I’d recommend at least 6 different pitches, with different focuses, repeated with different hashtags (if more than two are applicable). And out of those 6-12 differently focused, no-words-wasted, intriguing pitches, tweet your most fantastic ones at peak times. That is, as soon as the pitch party starts, and at lunch time EST, lunch time PST, and after-work hours. There will be more tweets then, and that’s likely when agents will do the most browsing, so your tweets then matter most.

There will be too many tweets for each agent to read. That’s why you need to use hashtags effectively (see below). You can always query those you think are a good fit for your novel (check #MSWL).

The Importance of Hashtags

The reason you need to use genre or age category hashtags in social media pitch parties is because that’s how agents filter through the feed. They can’t see every post! One agent was looking for Adult Fantasy works. She searched “#SFFpit #A #Fa” and that’s how she found my tweet.

When pitching in a general pitch party not specific to one particular genre or age category, your hashtags matter so much more. Make it easy for an agent to find you, or they never will. I tried searching for different genres during a PitchMAS party so I could repost, but I couldn’t find them because people weren’t using effective search terms. Use age category tags and genre tags, plus relevant and appropriate keywords (like “Bechdel” or “WNDB”—see my notes on references below).

KNOW THY GENRE. If you write speculative fiction, read my Straightforward Guide to Science Fiction and Fantasy Sub-Genres.

There are two deciding factors in assigning an age category. One is the age of the protagonist. One is the age of the audience, based on the age of protagonist and the content of the novel. If your protagonist is an adult, you can’t pitch it for kids. If your content is too mature for kids, it needs to be pitched at a higher age category. If the tone is too simple or cutesy for the intended audience, that needs to be fixed. Agents will reject YA novels if it “sounds MG.” (See When Voice and Genre Don’t Match)

Calls for Diversity: #WNDB and #DVpit

Remember that diversity is NOT a trend. It is not a label you “add in” as an afterthought to sell more books. If you are wanting to write characters who are marginalized in a way that you are not, invest your time in researching setting, culture, attitudes, worldview, and language, and invest your money in sensitivity reads.

If you are not a marginalized author, do not enter any pitch event that is for diverse or historically marginalized authors. Read DVpit’s notes on marginalization here.

If you do qualify as historically marginalized, you might be able to use the #WNDB or #WeNeedDiverseBooks hashtag in your pitch—if the event includes it as a hashtag.

We Need Diverse Books no longer uses the #ownvoices hashtag or label. Read why.

After the Pitch Party

What to do after pitch parties: STOP. Celebrate agent interest and newfound friends, analyze which pitches worked best, research agents.

DON’T:

Jump into querying too soon.
Query more than 1 agent per agency.
Query agents / presses that seem shady.

DO:

Query only agents / presses you’d trust your MS (& career!) with.
Take time to research agents and tailor your query for each. Try to send within the week.

If you sit at the bar and keep using the same line over and over again, it’s not going to be very successful unless you’re Ryan Gosling. You need to tailor your pitches based on the type of agent you want to represent you.

2014 SFFpit Results

Yes. I realize this is more than a decade old, but I do think that the data is still meaningful!

For the sake of this post, all times given are in CST, Central Standard Time.

Remember, #SFFpit is for writers and agents of speculative fiction. Agents looking for other genres might act differently. In fact, I expect they will. Be sure to read my analysis below.

Dan Koboldt, host of SFFpit, posted his results of the 2014 Twitter Party. A quick look:

641 authors tweeted 6,000 pitches
32 literary agents made 355 requests
11 small presses also participated
32% of authors received at least one request from an agent
14% of authors got requests from 2 or more agents

My results

I tweeted 24 times, once every half hour from 7am–7pm.
I pitched 22 completely different pitches for the same manuscript. I re-pitched two.
During those 12 hours, I received 143 RTs and 17 requests—10 from agents, 6 from small presses (one small press requested twice).

While I will certainly be looking into the small presses, this specific blog post is going to consider what the agents were looking for.

37.5% (9/24) of my pitches received requests from both agents and small presses.

25% received requests from literary agents. According to Dan Koboldt, I had the best results of any author participating.

Here are the 6 winning pitches:

In 1176, a prince’s wedding approacheth. And a 21st-century string trio is gonna crash it. THE PRINCESS BRIDE x LOST IN AUSTEN #SFFpit #tt

7:47 am, pinned to the top of my page, 26 RTs and 5 agent requests:
Tagged: Premise, Voice, Reference

Minnesotans land in 1176, fall in courtly love with locals. Arthurian & Shakespearian retellings in a fantasy comedy of errors. #SFFpit #TT

9:47 am, 9 RTs and 1 agent request
Tagged: Premise, Reference

Feminist geeks in chivalric 1176 must get home before they lose one of their own to medieval execution, self-harm, or love. #SFFpit #LF #YA

12:47 am, 1 RT, 1 agent request, 1 press request
Tagged: Premise, Stakes

What’s that you say? A medieval fantasy with a cast imitating real life? Bechdel, Mako Mori, MedievalPOC? That’s WORLD SONG. #SFFpit #HF #Fa

1:17 pm, 1 RT and 1 agent request
Tagged: Character, Premise, Reference

Stuck in 1176, a 24yo cellist must save his teen sis from an arranged marriage. FANGIRL x PRINCESS BRIDE (#NA + #YA POVs) #SFFpit #FA #TT #A

2:17 pm, 4 RTs, 1 agent request, 1 press request
Tagged: Premise, Stakes, Reference

Picture lovesick Taylor Swift stuck in 1176, depending on Chuck Bartowski to save her. (Yeah, NOTHING goes according to plan) #NA #A #SFFpit

3:17 pm, 1 RT, 1 agent request, 1 press request
Tagged: Voice, Premise, Reference

Audience Choice—Three pitches received 10 or more RTs but yielded no agent response:

Rob has 7 days to figure out inter-world transportation, or he’ll lose his sister to 12th century. Too bad he’s a music major. #SFFpit #TT

Tagged: Stakes, Voice

In 1176, time-traveling cellist must save sister from almost certain…marriage? Inspired by Shakespearean/Arthurian tales #sffpit #LF #Fa #NA

Tagged: Stakes, Premise, Reference

Rob has 7 days to figure out inter-world transportation, or he’ll lose his sister to 12th century. Too bad he’s a music major. #SFFpit #TT

Tagged: Stakes, Voice

The tweet that received the most RTs was actually the first and third “Audience Choice.” It was the clear winner in critique groups, and I thought for sure it would be my most successful pitch. 29 total RTs … zero agent response.

SFFpit Analysis

For the sake of this post, I will only be analyzing the requests from agents, not small presses. Realize that this is an extremely small sample and is particular to my genre and premise.

Analysis of Timing
Analysis of Focus
On Voice
On Comp Titles and Culture References
On Fresh Premises and Trendy Topics
On Hashtags, Again

Analysis of Timing

I started off the day with what I thought were some of my strongest pitches. My second post did better than my first, so I immediately pinned that to the top of my page. It went on to be my most successful pitch of the day, likely because it was pinned to the top of my page.

If you post great ones at the beginning of the day, they will be retweeted throughout the day, getting your pitch in front of more people.

The chart below shows the time the number of RTs and Requests (both agent and small press) by time posted.

I don’t know how to see when the agents were online, but I vaguely remember a surge of notifications at around 10 am CST and around 3 pm CST.

Analysis of Focus

I tagged my 22 different pitches by their focus:

Conflict
Character
Stakes
Voice
References (comp titles, pop culture references, social references, keywords from manuscript wishlists or MSWL)
Premise

As you can see, the audience favorites were definitely those pitches with clear stakes and a strong voice.

While most advice I see regarding pitching focuses on conflict and stakes, the success rate of my pitches suggests that isn’t necessarily what agents are looking for, at least in SFF, at least in my genres.

Two guesses.

One: Because the past two decades have given us multimillion dollar Science Fiction and Fantasy franchises, agents who represent these genres receive more derivative work than manuscripts from other genres. That’s why, today, in SFF, a fresh premise is important.

Two: Speculative fiction often features a clear antagonist. Whether it’s good vs evil, humanity vs aliens, or one girl against the world, it’s generally assumed that conflict and stakes are a given.

So if you aren’t writing SFF, don’t think that your pitches don’t need stakes!

Granted, my tweets that focused on stakes didn’t do bad at all, but they certainly didn’t do as well as ones with other focuses, as you can see:

All ten agents who requested on one of my tweets selected one tagged “premise.” Nine selected one with a reference of some sort, six chose one with strong voice.

However however however!

Not all of my “premise” tweets were successful. Let’s look at the success rate of each focus based on my 24 tweets.

Out of all six tags, the tweets with references (I’ll go through the references below) had the highest success rate at 50%. Of my 10 tweets with references, 5 got requests.

Those are pretty great odds.

The odds get even better when I start combining tags.

Now, here my sample size is showing, but of the 2 tweets that had both strong voice and a culture reference, 100% got a request.

And I’m thinking that the 0 requests for my Stakes + Voice pitches is more proof that pitching SFF just isn’t the same as pitching other genres. Those poor little babies. Maybe they’ll do better during a general pitching event like PitchMAS.

At bigger sample sizes, the results might not be the same, but one thing’s for certain:

No matter your genre, your pitches with strong voice and apt pop culture references are most likely to get noticed.

On Voice

It takes practice to have a natural voice to your writing. Voice = diction = word choice. Use specific nouns, verbs, and adjectives. See my posts on diction here.

On Comp Titles and Pop Culture References

I’ve spent months trying to find the best comparative titles for my novel. Here’s how to do it.

HOW TO CHOOSE COMP TITLES

1—Choose a novel that matches your novel in at least 2 of the following categories: genre, premise/plot, time, place, protagonist type, conflict, tone, audience, event.

2—Find another work that matches both your book and your first comp title in two or more of those categories.

My most successful pitch was The Princess Bride + Lost in Austen. While it isn’t a novel (I’d love to read it!), Lost in Austen matches my novel in genre (literary fantasy) and premise/plot (contemporary MC goes to a historical, fictional world, tries to get home, falls in love reluctantly with a local). The Princess Bride matches my novel and Lost in Austen in genre, and it matches my novel in tone (the irreverent humor), audience, time and place (medieval Europe-ish), and event (the wedding crashing).

Remember that when you are pitching a book to an agent, you are pitching a book to a reader. A reader that reads professionally. You’re also pitching to a professional. A professional that needs to make a living.

With that in mind, here are my

7 tips for including references in elevator pitches:

Be relevant—references to classical literature and old books aren’t as successful as ones published in the last two–three years. Show that you’re aware of what’s in the market today.
Be literary—make at least one of your comparative titles a novel, if possible. Show that you read your genre.
Be realistic—your references need to work for your novel. See “How to Choose Comp Titles” above.
Be humble—Don’t claim to be the next [Insert Famous Author Here].
Be specific—compare your characters to well-known characters (I picked Taylor Swift and Chuck Bartowski. Yes, I realize Taylor isn’t a fictional character)
Be savvy—if you can make a reference to a still-current social or political movement that affects publishing, do, but only if it applies to you or your manuscript (Examples: LGBTQ, Bechdel and Mako Mori feminism tests. Read my note on calls for diversity in the hashtag section.)
Be awesome—refer to something geeky or a cult classic that hasn’t been mentioned for a while and will stir up nostalgia. See what everybody else is mentioning (recent blockbusters, huge franchises, Buffy) and think of something else.

On Fresh Premises and Trendy Topics

By “fresh premise” I mean pitching something that the market isn’t currently saturated in. Pay attention to agents who post their responses to queries (#tenqueries, #querylunch, #500queries), and you’ll see what they are receiving a lot of. In winter 2014, they were receiving a lot of paranormal, dystopians, fairy tale retellings, and urban fantasy: Ghosts, angels, demons, werewolves, mermaids, psychics, empaths.

So if you’re pitching something trendy, focus on what makes your novel different and what makes yours unique, not on what makes it trendy.

The good news about publishing is that it’s cyclical. So you can try to grab the readers now, while they are hungry, by self-publishing, or you can wait a couple of years until the big publishers come back to it. Remember that anything that is trendy now, won’t be in two years when the books being written now are being put out on bookshelves. You either have to be a year or two ahead of the market, or a couple years behind.

Remember vampires, which weren’t popular in 2014 but agents were aflutter for in 2018, and which had a moment in books published in 2020 especially, and then again in 2022–2023, two years after the Dracula movie. With Nosferatu out in 2024, you can expect another bump in vampire books published in 2026. Vampires really are the undying genre.

On Hashtags, Again

Use them. Of the agents who requested from my pitches, here are the total number of requests they made during the SFFpit event, in descending order:

40, 34, 33, 33, 7, 6, 5, 3, 3, 3

If you take into consideration all the favorites and the 32 agents who participated, a single agent, on average, chose only 11 pitches. Out of six thousand.

That suggests to me that they are searching for things that might be on their Manuscript Wishlist or #MSWL and requesting those, rather than reading thousands of pitches at random.

Final thoughts

Research what agents are looking for. See which Wish Lists are compatible with your novel, and then try to guess what that agent might search for during a pitch party. If one of your favorite agents is looking for space opera, use that hashtag, or if there isn’t a designated hashtag list, use those words in one of your pitches. That way when an agent searches “#SFFpit space opera,” your pitch will pop up.

Why You Should Write & Submit Short Works

17 April, 20184 August, 20182 Comments

Pssssst: It’s my birthday today! Usually I wouldn’t advertise that, but it’s my 30th, so yeah, I’m going to unapologetically ask you to check out the Kickstarter project I’m involved in.

Contents:

The Importance of Writing Short Pieces

Back in 2017, novelist and screenwriter Tim Federle, asked, “Writers who’ve been at it a while, what’s one piece of craft advice you wish your younger self had known?”

This was my answer, based on my experience and the decades’ experience of my editing clients:

Write (and finish!) more short works before attempting that three-volume novel or ten-year comic. Advice teaches you how others write, but each new story you write teaches you how to solve problems with your unique brain.

If your current WIP (work in progress) is long-form fiction or essays or a book-length project, you could go months before finishing something. Writing something shorter can grant that feeling of accomplishment so many of our brains depend on to keep motivation up.

In “The Psychology of Checklists: Why Setting Small Goals Motivates Us to Accomplish Bigger Things,” Trello blogger Lauren Marchese says:

When we experience even small amounts of success, our brains release dopamine, which is connected to feelings of pleasure, learning and motivation. When we feel the effects of dopamine, we’re eager to repeat the actions that resulted in success in the first place. Neuroscientists refer to this as “self-directed learning.” This is why achieving small goals is such an effective way to stay motivated during long-term projects and processes.

[links original to post]

Write a draft you can finish in a day or week: flash fiction, a short script for a comic or skit, a poem, an outline of a picture book. A fifteen-blinker—300-800 maximum words for prose, fewer than 30 lines for poetry.

If you’re between projects or stuck on one, if you’re feeling uninspired or pressed for time, write something short. Something completely different from what you are currently writing on. Let the madman loose and write without rules. Don’t edit, don’t revise, just finish the thing.

And OK, once you’ve finished the thing, and if you’re not on deadline for something else, revise that work and submit to contests, anthologies, or magazines. Shorter works are quicker to revise, so you can submit more frequently, which gives you a better chance of getting published (that is, if you keep improving as a writer and aren’t a jerk to the publishing community…).

Sure, you might get a bunch of “No”s, but rejections hurt less for works you didn’t invest as many months into.

And any “yes” is an upvote for your skill as a writer and an addition to your writer bio.

So how do you submit, anyway?

Submitting to Literary Magazines and Journals

Before you ever sign a contract, I recommend having a lawyer look over the terms. If you can’t afford a lawyer, research the terms and any person or entity involved in the contract before signing your name.

Submitting to a literary journal or nonprofit press is not the same as submitting to a commercial publisher. They want different things. A commercial publisher wants a query letter that will help them gauge whether you or your work will sell to a commercial audience. (That isn’t to say they don’t want good writing or that they won’t accept quiet works from unknown writers!) Still, query letters have to market your writing.

A cover letter for a journal or nonprofit press should include how your work will fit in with their oeuvre of published work. Literary journal and nonprofit press editors often skim or skip the cover letter—they care more about the story and voice than the pitch or concept. However, no matter how excellent your work is, it still has to fit within their brand. Your Hugo-worthy political fantasy will get rejected by Stymie, a literary magazine focused on sports.

Find literary magazines and journals to submit through Poets & Writers search or Writers Market. The latter requires a subscription. One year is the best deal, but you can pay $6 for one month and then cancel. You can order the physical book online for half price or pick up a copy of the book at a bookstore. Your local library may have a free copy of Writer’s Market to borrow, but it might be out of date.

Always check online to see if the submission information is accurate and to see if the magazine or journal has specific requirements for their cover letter.

Submitting Comics to Anthologies

If you are part of a comics community, you might catch word of anthologies and open submissions through your network. Otherwise check out Find Anthologies! on Twitter.

Each anthology will have their own submission requirements. Most likely, if you aren’t illustrating your own work, you will need to have an illustrator up front. Together you will create a proposal with a cover letter, pitch, and sample pages or character designs.

Group Chat, a Comics Anthology about Friendship, Is Now Live on Kickstarter!

This whole blog post comes from personal experience. I frequently need to feel like I’ve finished something tangible, or else I get discouraged.

While working on long pieces, I often need to distract myself, especially when I’m feeling stuck or uninspired, by writing something short. I’ll write poetry, picture books, and short comics.

Well, one of those short comics is being published in an anthology!

Read the description below. Emphasis mine, because that’s the comic I wrote!

Group Chat features 24 up-and-coming creators, all telling stories about the people who have your back no matter what.
Group Chat spans genres from sci-fi to slice-of-life; from westerns to witchy shenanigans to coming-of-age stories. These comics —feeling good about your body after a mastectomy, two friends supporting each other through the creation of a trans fashion line, learning to appreciate your best friend’s chucklehead boyfriend, and others—were carefully chosen for their humor, heart, and beauty from a wide range of up-and-coming creators.

See the project on Kickstarter. If you watch the project video, “Best Dressed” is featured at 1:45. You can catch an additional sneak peak on Twitter or in my @larathelark Instagram Stories (Stories only available on mobile).

“Best Dressed” is a feel-good comic about dressing-room anxiety.

Want to read the original comic script?

Pledge at least $10 to the Kickstarter (the price for a digital copy of the whole anthology, 200+ pages) and email the pledge confirmation to querylara (at) gmail (.)com.

Julia Hutchinson is an illustrator and comics artist whom I follow on Twitter. She was looking to collaborate on a couple anthology submissions, and I sent her my idea for a comic for Group Chat. When I needed inspiration while writing the comic, I looked to the Leslie Knope / Ann Perkins friendship from Parks and Recreation and Julia’s previous artwork to solidify the characters. I wrote the skeleton, but Julia’s art brought my script to life with muscles and skin and spirit. She’s awesome, and I’m really proud of the comic we made together!

Don’t Write Comics (How to Write Comics)

3 August, 20173 August, 2017Leave a comment

In this four-part series of articles on LitReactor, you’ll hear from Kelly Thompson, Kickstarter crowdfunding author legend and the writer behind Heart In A Box (Dark Horse Comics, 2015). Kelly also writes Hawkeye, Phasma, Star Wars, Ghostbusters, A-Force, Jem & The Holograms, Misfits, Power Rangers: Pink, and Mega Princess, a creator-owned middle grade comic book series.

hawkeye-kate-bishop-by-kelly-thompson

Thompson’s Hawkeye is pitched as Veronica Mars meets superheroes. Shop Volume One from a local indie bookseller at IndieBound

Don’t Write Comics: How to Write Comics Part One

If you’re interested in comics solely because you think it might be easy or that it might be a shortcut to another end (like having a movie made of your comic) let me just stop you right here and point you towards the exit. While it’s true that some screenplays get reverse engineered into comics, and then after being successful comics are turned into successful films (30 Days of Night springs to mind), there’s nothing “quick and easy” about making comics. In fact, if you’re not well connected to artists (and possibly some publishers) and/or willing to lay out your own money upfront in some cases, then it can be the very opposite of quick and easy. In order to make good comics, I truly believe you have to already love comics. It’s the love that’s going to get you through.

Identify What You’re Writing
Read, Read, Read
Getting Professional Help

Part Two

So, against all my advice last time, you’re still planning to write a comic book series, huh? And you’ve done all your research as detailed in Part I, right?

All right then, let’s talk about what you need to pull together in order to pitch the project to publishing houses.

What You’ll Need
Specifications
The Script [Also check out my (Lara’s) post on Formatting a Graphic Novel]
Stumbling Blocks
Accepting Reality

Part Three

Now comes the hard part. Because now you have to find someone way more talented than yourself to invest emotionally, mentally, and physically in your project.

And if you want the really good art, you’re probably going to have to pay for it.

Paying Is Key
Sequential Pages Are King
Where to Look
‘The Right’ Artist

Part Four

I always recommend using an agreement, whether you are strangers or best friends, because no matter how well-intentioned everyone is at the outset it never hurts to have clarity between all parties, and a clarity that is written down, dated, and signed, is best.

Agreements
Collaboration