YOU probably think that writing a book means, well, writing a book. But it also means writing and editing lots of other accompanying texts describing your book that will be used throughout the publishing process. In addition to your manuscript, if you’re trying to land an agent, you’ll probably write a synopsis and a query letter. For the query letter you’ve been told you must pitch your book. What does that mean and how in the world do you do it?
A pitch can be a few different things. It can be a short, punchy, one-to-two sentence summary of your book, one that makes me want to read it. It can be in an format, like “ meets ,” or one that situates your book against another, like “a modern retelling of but on Mars.” It doesn’t to be in one of these formats, but these are among the shapes that pitches often take. Some people consider your whole query letter, synopsis, and manu-script to be your “pitch” or your “pitch package.” For our purposes
