The Black Belt Approach to Writing a Pitch

On Saturday, I watched a Belt Test at my sons’ Tae Kwon Do studio. Students were asked to name the most important thing they’d learned in the past six months. For me, it is learning to write a pitch. I'm certainly not a Black Belt pitch writer, but at least I’m no longer stumbling aimlessly around the query letter mat.

1. Float like a butterfly. I started by writing the voiceover script for a book trailer. This exercise gave me one very good sentence, and it reminded me why I liked my WIP - which I'd mostly forgotten in the pitched battle of writing pitches.

2. Sting like a bee. I read Elana Johnson’s book, From the Query to the Call. Elana provides a simple formula and worksheets for pitch writing. Here are Casey McCormick’s review and Beth Revis’ author interview.

3. Don’t let your guard down. I checked my work by reading Mary Kole’s post on queries. Mary Kole is an associate agent at Andrea Brown Literary Agency.

4. Rest between sparring matches. I let the query letter sit. Usually, I like my pitches right after I write them, but the problems become obvious in a few hours.