There\u2019s an E. E. Cummings poem which tells us:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
here is the deepest secret nobody knows<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n (here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n and the sky of the sky of a tree called life<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n And that\u2019s what we\u2019re talking about this week. The root of the root and the bud of the bud and the sky of the sky of a book called Sales.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Or, indeed, a book called Quality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n All this is a roundabout way to say that this week\u2019s email is going to be talking (again) about elevator pitches and it\u2019s going to invite you to forget completely that a pitch is meant to be about sales<\/em>. Forget selling. Forget marketing. The pitch I want you to find is all about finding the root of the root and the bud of the bud.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We\u2019ll get to Feedback Friday<\/strong><\/a> later in this email, but for now \u2013 clear your mind and chant:<\/p>\n\n\n\n To explain those points in a bit more detail \u2013<\/p>\n\n\n\n Nothing to do with sales<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Take my basic pitch for the Fiona Griffiths stuff: \u201cdetective who used to think she was dead.\u201d That pitch never featured in any marketing material, nor could it, because that sentence gives away THE big secret of the book.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Not a book description<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n It doesn\u2019t even vaguely describe the book, because you don\u2019t know where or when the book is set or anything at all about the crime or investigation on which the book centres. As a book description, the pitch totally fails.<\/p>\n\n\n\n No abstractions<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n There are no abstract nouns in that pitch. In practice, the book deals centrally with some big abstractions. (What is it to feel alive? The book is all about the struggle to be human.) But the pitch has no interest in those big themes, or not really. There\u2019s a detective. She is in recovery from a strange psychiatric illness. The tiny bit of information conveyed is very specific, very narrow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Front door only<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Most pitches I see are attempting to summarise an 80,000 word book in 12 words. That doesn\u2019t work. You can\u2019t do that \u2013 or not in any interesting way. All you can do is show people a front door that they want to walk through. One of your pitches<\/a><\/strong> from last week (one good enough to get a free agent 1-2-1) was simply this:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Dirty Pitch: A refugee crisis in space.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Boom! That doesn\u2019t tell you much about the book \u2013 who\u2019s the hero? What\u2019s the story? Are we near future or far future? What specific goals and obstacles define the story? But it\u2019s a front door you immediately want to walk through. You just instantly want to know more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A little piece of crystal<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n A crystal is specific, not abstract. It\u2019s tiny, but fully formed and perfect. And in the case of your book, it\u2019s the root of the root (the deepest thing in your novel) and the bud of the bud (the thing from which everything else shoots and forms.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n So that take that \u201crefugee crisis in space\u201d pitch. You can already guess that those words will hover over every page of the novel. It\u2019s the deepest thing and the most fruitful. It\u2019s the source of everything else. It\u2019s also the thing you\u2019ll recall first, when you remember the novel 20 years later. That\u2019s a perfect pitch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Two or three ingredients<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Lots of great pitches have just two ingredients:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Teen romance + vampires<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Orphan + Wizard school<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Refugee crisis + spaceships<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Detective + thought she was dead<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Some pitches need three ingredients. One of last week\u2019s Feedback Friday winners came up with a pitch<\/strong><\/a> that effectively amounted to:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ghosts + Orient Express (or similar) + Victorian curse<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Take away any one of those ingredients and the book would seem a little thin. Pop all three in the pot and there\u2019s just a little shiver of anticipation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Another example (again drawn from one of your Feedback Friday entries):<\/p>\n\n\n\n Murder story + 1960s America.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n That\u2019s OK, but a bit dull, right? I mean, you might like murder stories and you might like that setting, but this pitch is giving no reason to pick up that book specifically. On the other hand, what about this:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Murder story + 1960s America + NASA space programme<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Now you immediately want to read that book. The combination of ingredients coheres perfectly into something yumptious. You can already feel that if you started to over-describe your book (forgetting that your pitch is offering a door, not the whole house) you\u2019d lose that instant pop of interest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Two last things from me before we turn to this week\u2019s Feedback Friday<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n One<\/strong>: A couple of people, writing literary fiction, have complained that this pitching task is one required by genre fiction only. But that\u2019s truly not the case. I found myself using Ian McEwan as an example of how successful literary novels always have a gleam of silver at their hearts. So Atonement<\/em> had a famous dirty bit, Enduring Love<\/em> had a bloke falling off a balloon, Amsterdam<\/em> involves a euthanasia \/ murder story. And so on. In each case, the deeper purpose and themes of the novel offer proper, thoughtful, literary fare. But McEwan purchases his right to do the literary stuff, but making damn sure that there\u2019s a gleam of silver in every book. If you\u2019re writing literary fiction, and you are less famous than Ian McEwan, then I recommend you take the same approach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Two<\/strong>: Are pitches about achieving sales? Or maximising quality?<\/p>\n\n\n\n The opposition is phoney. A good pitch deals with both things. Sure, it\u2019s about sales, as those Ian McEwan examples show. Even when you\u2019re as good as he is, you need a spark to make the sale.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At the same time, a good pitch is fundamentally about quality. Because a good book has a kind of holism and the little scrap you use for your pitch should say something really deep about what the novel is. What it does. Why<\/em> it is. Why it\u2019s necessary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Go back to that simple pitch<\/strong><\/a>: \u201crefugee crisis in space\u201d. Would you want to read a book about a modern-day refugee crisis? An overcrowded camp in Calais? Trafficking gangs in Libya? Probably not. Move that same basic dynamic to space and of course you want to read more. What\u2019s more \u2013 if the book is any good \u2013 it\u2019ll shift your view of refugees. It\u2019ll change you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The root of the root and the bud of the bud.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Feedback Friday<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Free agent feedback<\/u><\/em>: <\/em>Last week, I promised that three talented people would get a free agent 1-2-1. I\u2019ve chosen the lucky three and you can read their winning pitches here:<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Runners<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n The Truth and Lies of Coraline Crow<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n The Necropolis Line<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Congrats to the Chosen Ones and I\u2019ll be giving away free 1-2-1s to Feedback Friday Folk as often as the mood takes me. I\u2019ll honestly be surprised if at least one of those three books doesn\u2019t end up in print.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Assignment for this week<\/u><\/em>: Elevator pitches again please, but a bit different this time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That\u2019s the assignment, share them here<\/strong><\/a>. I will look after Premium Members<\/strong><\/a> first and foremost, but everyone\u2019s invited.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Not a Townhouse member<\/u><\/em>? It\u2019s free and easy to join. Info here<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
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