GBF Hands-On Workshop: Perfecting the Pitch

Your book’s finished and that dream literary agent’s gotten in the elevator with you, leaving you just 30 seconds to capture their imagination with a great pitch.

‘Perfecting the Pitch’ puts the essence of your book on paper in the best prose, least words and in a delivery that the right editor and agent won’t be able to turn down.

Through a series of workshop exercises, two versions of ‘the pitch’ are taught, the 30-second-or-less, 30-word ‘elevator pitch’ and an expanded two-minute, 150 to 200-word ‘sit down’ pitch. Shorter than a synopsis, the pitch is the tool that gets your foot in the door.

Here are two elevator pitch examples:

Sticks & Stones – Dylan Sticks and Seamus Stones are living decrepit Dublin lives until they steal a leprechaun’s gold and journey to America, inciting the wrath of a dragon, Scotland Yard, Barbary pirates, three Indian tribes and the biggest buffalo herd in the history of the 1859 American frontier. Tom Sawyer, Huck Finn look out. Sticks and Stones are in town.

The Prosecutor, Prostitute & The Prostitute – When a prostitute is found murdered in Saint Mary’s church vestibule, Father Anthony is arrested, and with the entire town’s perceptions in jeopardy, it’s up to District Attorney Marcus Mangell to bring the murderer to justice and restore his community’s faith in law and order. Did Father Anthony have sex with a prostitute and murder her to cover it up? Who killed Arcella Landreth and can Mangell insure Father Anthony gets a fair trial? The Prosecutor, Prostitute & The Priest asks, “What is right, what is fair and what is true?”

Learn how to craft your own pitch to sell your story by attending Perfecting the Pitch, at the Gaithersburg Book Festival. Don’t forget that pre-registration is required for all hands-on workshops.