If you are going to get your book published then you need an effective cover letter and a decent elevator pitch.
When submitting to a publisher or agent the first thing they look at is your cover letter. Yeah, you need a decent synopsis and extract, but the cover letter is your first chance to sell your book. Many writers miss this golden opportunity to hook a potential book deal with a weak cover letter. Luckily, one of the best ways to initially hook a publisher or agent is with a decent elevator pitch
What’s an elevator pitch?
The concept is borrowed from the business world. The idea is that an elevator pitch is a brief two minute presentation that can be given to a potential investor during an elevator ride.
An elevator pitch comes right at the top of your letter, straight after the address and ‘dear sir/madam’ information. It is your first chance to wow the publisher/agent and is a single line of text that sums up your book in an entertaining and engaging manner.
The best way to think of an elevator pitch (because it is one) is the strap line of a film or that concise blurb you get on the back of a book.
The five element approach
There are a couple of ways to construct an elevator pitch, but this post focusses on a method developed from Randy Ingermanson’s Snowflake concept for writing a novel.
A novel’s plot can be split into five elements :
- Character: Who’s the main character?
- Situation: What is the situation that is forcing the main character to take action?
- Goal: What is the main character’s aim?
- Conflict: What is stopping the character from achieving their goal?
- Disaster: What is the pinnacle of the story, the moment at which the character’s goal may be lost for ever?
The first step is to write out the answers for all of the questions above. This will give you a tight outline of your book’s plot. From this you can mould it down to a two sentence elevator pitch
Example
Here’s the elevator pitch for the story of The Three Little Pigs :
- Character: Three little pigs.
- Situation: Left home and need to make their own way in the world.
- Goal: Build three new houses.
- Conflict: Big bad wolf will huff and puff and kill the pigs.
- Disaster: Two pigs are killed and third needs to escape.
From the above I get :
Three little pigs venture out into the world, looking to make a new home. However, vicious serial killer, the Big Bag Wolf, is on the prowl and after a terrible killing spree can the last little pig, who is left with just a pile of bricks, escape?
From this I cut down to :
With his brothers already devoured by a serial killer known only as The Big Bad Wolf, the third pig, fights for his life with just a pile of bricks between him and certain death…
Anyone use a different technique?