Once you’ve prepared and rehearsed your sensational pitch, and have selected your target buyers, just one hurdle remains: How do you get them to listen to it?
An Editorial Comment…
Since the beginning of humanity, people have used stories to elicit emotion, to express their deepest beliefs and feelings, to inform, to anger, to amuse, to inspire, and to advance civilization. And as soon as the first Neanderthal told the first story to the first cavemen huddled around a fire, another Neanderthal was saying, “Gee, I’d love to do that, but I don’t know anyone who produces fires.”
The #1 excuse for failure among writers is that they can’t sell their stuff without an agent, and they can’t get an agent without having sold anything.
It’s also the #1 crock of shit.
A popular variation of this Catch-22 excuse is to claim that it’s impossible even to get a screenplay or manuscript read if you don’t know somebody powerful in Hollywood or New York or Toronto or London or wherever.
My answer to these excuses is always to pose this question: “If it’s impossible to get stuff read, how do any stories ever get sold, or books printed, or movies made? Were all those writers just the children of publishers and movie stars?”
Getting your story read, and getting your pitch heard, isn’t easy. It takes thought, preparation, effort and tenacity. But it’s far from impossible — just ask all the agents and readers who lug a dozen scripts or book proposals home every weekend. The authors of those stories somehow got it done.
If you don’t know anybody when your story is ready to market, you go meet people. You introduce yourself to the people in power with a referral, or a letter, or an email, or a phone call, or at a pitch fest or at a conference or at a party. And if any of the people you want to meet simply aren’t accessible, you go meet people who are close to them, and you get them to read your story, and you trust that your writing will speak for itself, and is powerful enough to get in the hands of the people you want to see it.
And how, exactly, do you do all that? How do you persuade these powerful people to hear your pitch? I’ll tell you how….
But Wait, I Have One More Rant…
Sooner or later — probably sooner — as you begin implementing the steps outlined in this book, you’re going to hear someone say, “Agents won’t listen to pitches. You’ve got to send a query letter.” Then you’ll go to a writers conference, where you’ll hear a panel of agents say, “We won’t listen to pitches over the phone. You’ve got to send us a query letter.” And then you’ll read a book or an article or a web posting that says the same thing.
And pretty soon you’re in danger of excusing yourself from even preparing a pitch, let alone going after potential buyers, because you’ve convinced yourself that a query letter is all that matters.
I don’t deny that query letters are important. I’ll talk about them shortly. And I know it’s the stated policy of almost every agency, production company and publishing house in the country to require query letters, just as it’s the stated policy of almost every producer and studio in Hollywood not to accept screenplays unless they’re submitted by agents.
But here’s my question: If you ask every single one of these agents or producers or editors if, in spite of company policy, they have ever agreed to look at a screenplay or book proposal without first seeing a query letter, will you find a single one whose answer will be no?
Not likely. Everyone in power, because of a recommendation, or because of a persuasive writer who caught them on the phone after her assistant had left, or because of an interesting or passionate writer she met at a conference or party, has broken that “rule” and listened to a short pitch. And because that pitch hooked her immediately, she agreed to read the writer’s story.
You just have to become that writer.
You won’t get lucky with everyone. But like every other aspect of marketing your writing, you’re playing a numbers game, and the more people you approach, the more successful you’ll be.
Referrals
The strongest way to approach potential buyers, and the most likely way to get your story read, is with referrals from people the buyers know and respect. They don’t even have to respect them that much. If someone vouches for your ability as a writer, or for the strength of your story, the buyer wants to believe him.
Though it’s easy to forget in the face of all the stories of rejection you hear, agents and managers and publishers and producers want to find good writers, and good stories. They have to, or they’re out of business.
The reason it’s often hard to get stuff read is that the people in power are incredibly busy, and they simply don’t have time to wade through every unsolicited screenplay or manuscript they encounter — especially when such a tiny percentage is worth reading.
So when a writer is recommended to her, an agent is interested, because it means somebody else has done the work of slogging through all the junk written by all the time-wasters to find a storyteller with potential. It’s at least worth her time to hear a 60-second pitch, so she can make up her own mind.
A referral doesn’t require that the person making the recommendation read your script (although it’s an even stronger recommendation if he does). You can call your contact and say, “I’ve just finished my latest screenplay, and I’m wondering if you know anyone you think might be interested in this particular story.” When they ask what it’s about, you simply launch your 60-second pitch.
Hearing the essential components of your story will make it much easier for your contact to identify potential buyers. And because your pitch has hooked him emotionally, he’ll feel far more comfortable recommending you to people he knows.
A referral doesn’t require that your contact actually make the introduction. Once he suggests possible buyers for you to pursue, ask if it’s okay to use his name in making your pitch. This will often be enough to get a buyer to hear your story.
One word of caution: Never ever claim a recommendation if you haven’t actually gotten permission from the person you claim referred you. It’s dishonest, and it can end up embarrassing or angering everybody involved. That will damage your reputation and career far more than not getting a particular buyer to read your script.
Pitch Festivals
Without pitch fests, this book would never have been written. I’ve been lecturing about writing, and coaching writers on their work, for more than twenty-five years. So when pitch fests came along, lots of my students and clients wanted to know how to take advantage of this new opportunity.
Because most pitch fests allow only five minutes with a buyer, the old rules of pitch meetings didn’t really apply. And I knew what a struggle it was for most writers — even those with terrific stories — to describe their work succinctly, while conveying its commercial and artistic potential.
So I began working with writers one-on-one to create pitches that would get buyers interested. The more writers I coached, the more I realized that the weaknesses of bad pitches — trying to tell the whole story, focusing on unimportant details, neglecting the need for passion and emotion — showed up again and again. So out of that grew a lecture about designing and presenting a great pitch. And out of that lecture grew this book.
So, understandably, I consider pitch fests (or pitch marts, or one-on-ones with agents and editors at conferences and book fairs) great opportunities for writers to get access to buyers that might otherwise be hard to reach.
Nonetheless, there are three big drawbacks to pitch fests:
Pitch fests are expensive. Pitch fests generally require a sizable flat fee for an unlimited number of pitches, or a “per pitch” fee that can add up quickly if you’re pitching to lots of buyers. This means that you want to be absolutely certain that your pitch is powerful and well rehearsed before you arrive.
Equally important, it means that your screenplay or manuscript is absolutely professional quality before you begin pitching, so that if you get interest (and if you us
e the methods in this book, I guarantee you will), you’ve got a good shot at getting a deal.
Unless you’ve gotten consistent positive feedback from people whose judgment you trust (because they’re knowledgeable about fiction and because they’ll be honest about your story’s weaknesses), attending a pitch fest is premature. Keep saving up your money while you continue rewriting.
Some screenwriters attend pitch fests and pitch projects they haven’t even completed. If the purpose of doing this is to secure a development deal to get paid to write the script, it’s a big mistake. Unless you’re a well established writer — and if you are, pitch fests aren’t necessary — you won’t get a writing deal based only on a pitch or a treatment. You must have a completed screenplay.
Pitching a story without a completed screenplay really only makes sense if you want to co-produce the project, and you’re looking for representation, or for a production company to partner with. Having no screenplay can sometimes be an advantage in this case, because it allows the company to bring in an established screenwriter and offer him sole writing credit. But it won’t advance your writing career.
Of course, if you’re a novelist, you’ll be pitching unfinished work most of the time, because your goal will be to get a book proposal read, not a completed manuscript. Just make sure you’ve gotten lots of positive feedback on the proposal, and don’t pitch your story until that’s ready to submit.
I suppose it’s logical to pitch your uncompleted project to get a feel for how buyers will react to your story before you commit many more months to writing it. If you can afford to do this, great. But it’s an expensive way to test the marketplace.
Pitch fests require lots of travel. No way around this, unless you live in Southern California (a high price to pay just to be close to pitch fests). So now issues of cost become even greater.
If you have to take time away from home, and pay all those travel costs, I’d focus on pitch fests that offer lots of pitching opportunities for one flat fee, like the Great American Pitch Fest (for screenwriters) and the New York City Pitch-and-Shop Conference (for novelists), or which are held in conjunction with a writers conference, so the trip offers lots of educational and networking opportunities, e.g. the American Screenwriters Association Selling to Hollywood Conference and the Screenwriting EXPO-PitchXchange (for screenwriters); the Romance Writers of America national conference and Book Expo America (for book authors); and the Willamette Writers Conference and Santa Barbara Writers Conference (for both). Many more pitching opportunities exist in all of these categories, and can be found with a little web surfing.
The top agents and executives from the most powerful companies don’t usually show up at pitch fests. No way around this either.
The majority of people you’ll pitch to at any legitimate pitch fest have the ability to lead you to a deal. But some big agencies don’t allow their people to participate in pitch fests. And some production companies and publishers assign the newest readers and assistants to hear pitches, often insisting that they only collect synopses of the pitches they hear, because they can’t agree to read anything on their own.
But so what? If buyers won’t come, they won’t come. Pursue them using the other methods in this chapter.
And if you’re pitching to a lowly assistant, give him your best pitch. As I’ve said, he’s far more eager to find good material (and far more desperate to finally hear a good pitch) than an established agent, because the assistant knows bringing in good material is his best shot at getting promoted (and then sending his poor assistant to the next pitch fest).
Conferences and Book Fairs
Pitch fests are often one component of larger writers conferences and book fairs. But even if a conference has no official pitch fest, they provide a number of other opportunities to deliver your short pitch:
One-on-one sessions. Participating in a conference often gives you the opportunity for 10- or 15-minute, face-to-face meetings with the speakers and panelists. But don’t approach the session as if it’s the same as a pitch fest encounter. Some of these people aren’t in a position to acquire projects or read material. They’re writers themselves, or have been instructed not to solicit or accept material for legal reasons.
So when you begin your one-on-one, tell the person that you’re marketing your story, and would like to get her feedback on your pitch. If she’s in a position to read material, if your pitch is strong (which it will be), and if it sounds appropriate for her company, she’ll ask to read it.
If she can’t accept material to read, you’ll still get additional help honing your pitch. Then you can ask, “Now that you’ve heard my pitch, who do you think I should contact about the project? What do you think is the best way to get to them?” If the person is truly enthusiastic about your story, and suggests a specific person who might be interested, you can even ask if it’s okay to use her name. “When I contact [the person she recommended], may I say that you suggested I call?”
Always take a list of specific questions to these one-on-one sessions. If you have time remaining after your pitch, or if the person isn’t willing to hear your pitch in the first place, the session will still be of great value.
I know you didn’t ask, but even if you’re not pitching — especially if you’re not pitching — always have questions prepared when you sit down with a guest lecturer or panelist.
I’ve done a lot of these table meetings at conferences, and the most frustrating situations are when writers arrive with no real sense of what they want to know. I don’t mind asking, “How can our ten minutes be the most help to you?” but I always believe that if the writers had been prepared, I could have offered them much more valuable information and advice.
Hallway pitches. Conferences offer many informal encounters with potential buyers. Though tackling an agent in the hotel lobby, pinning him against the wall and forcing him to hear your pitch might get you into trouble — or at least make it hard to establish rapport — there are less dramatic ways of introducing yourself and talking about your project.
The key is to respect the person’s time. Tell him why you’re eager to meet him, and then ask if there is any time that would be convenient to tell him about your story.
To begin your pitch on the spot is presumptuous, won’t get the buyer’s full attention and is likely to put him off. Instead say, “I’ve been hoping ever since I heard your panel discussion that I’d get a chance to talk to you. I loved what you said about (or I loved the novel you were involved in, or I was a big fan of the movie you helped get made). I have a novel (or screenplay) I’m just beginning to market, and I wondered if you had two minutes here at the conference, or over the phone, that I could tell you about it.”
As you probably guessed, when you’re in this situation, don’t whip out a copy of your book proposal or screenplay as you walk up to the buyer. If you do, he’ll assume you’re going to ask him to take it on the spot, which he can’t, or won’t want to. So he’ll probably pass on hearing your pitch altogether.
Otherwise, chances are good that unless he’s surrounded by other people, or is late getting somewhere, he’ll ask to hear your pitch right then. If he doesn’t, he’ll ask you to meet him later, or to phone his assistant the following week. But the choice is his, and either way, he’ll respect your consideration and professionalism, which will make him that much more interested in the possibility of working with you.
Pitching workshops. Some pitch fests or book fairs offer seminars where participants present their pitches just to get coaching from several experts. This is a great opportunity to rehearse your pitch. Not only will you get valuable suggestions on how to sharpen it, you’ll be so nervous pitching to a room full of people that the pitches you make to buyers will seem easy by comparison.
An added advantage to these classes is that potential buyers sometimes attend them. When I lecture about pitching, I often ask for volunteers to come to the front of the room so I can coach them on their pitches, a
nd show everyone how these principles can be put into action. I know of many instances where these writers were later approached about their novels or screenplays by agents or editors or producers who heard the writers’ “practice” pitches.
Query Letters
Query letters are by far the most common method writers use for getting their material read. If a potential buyer reads a letter that piques her interest, she’ll contact the writer and ask to see the material. That, at least, is the theory.
The problem with the theory is that it seldom works that way, so writers send off bags full of query letters, get no replies and start thinking maybe their parents were right about pursuing a nice, solid career in nursing.
I think the real allure of query letters is not that they’re so effective, but that they’re so easy. Once a writer composes a good, strong query letter, he can blast it out to every agent in the Writer’s Guide or the Hollywood Creative Directory, then just sit back and wait for the requests to come pouring in. No need to experience the fear, nervousness, frustration and in-your-face rejection of a phone call or pitch fest — the writer can stay where the writer probably wants to stay (or he wouldn’t have become a writer): in the safety and solitude of his own home.
Query letters also make life easier for buyers. These never-ending pleas for consideration can be added to the pile of unopened mail, ignored indefinitely, and don’t even require a response. If the project sounds like a tough sell, or if the letter is poorly written, it can just be tossed in the circular file. No need to spend hours on the phone taking pitch calls, and no need to experience the discomfort of telling someone to her face that you’re not interested in her work.
Selling Your Story in 60 Seconds Page 8