Prepping for a Pitch

That’s right. On Friday, I am scheduled to do my first ever verbal pitch to a publishing company. How much alliteration could I fit in here? Prepping to pitch for a publisher…to prepare a project? Ha, okay. If you are wondering, yes, I am nervous.

I spent hours researching how to do verbal pitches, compiled pages of advice, and finally condensed them into like five pages of notes and written out responses to potential questions…seriously, readers do not appreciate the efforts writers put into getting their work out there for them.

What finally really helped was changing my mindset. I spent years as an analyst, and, as Daniel said, maybe that was to prep me to be able to do these things? After all, I’ve done public speaking, run meetings with very important people, and pitched projects with less data than I personally thought they needed…if I thought of my book as another project…if I thought of it in the mindset of an analyst, would that help me able to pick it apart enough to sell it? And the answer is, yes. At least, I hope so. It certainly helped me finally develop a saleable pitch that I feel I can stand behind.

So the last week has been spent practicing my now prepared pitch and trying to tamp down my nerves. Prayers much appreciated as I head into the end of the week…prayers that I will be able to approach it from the perspective (what is with all the “P” words??) of a businesswomen, an analyst, and present it as such. Prayers that if, and only if, it is God’s will for this company to publish my work, that they would present me with an offer.

Oh, and for any fellow writers reading this, while I found a LOT of useful advice, I will say I took the most away from this website:

https://www.annemini.com/category/pitching-to-an-agent/pitch-examples/