I’m a positive person. I go into experiences expecting to enjoy them, learn something, grow a little bit – you get the picture. The New York Pitch Conference exceeded all of my expectations ten-fold, and nevermind how much I fell in love with New York.
I arrived on Wednesday, settled in at the hotel, and explored the city. That first day and night was for me. I walked all over, ate a hot dog from a street vendor in front of Radio City Music Hall, and took in a Broadway show (How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying and it was fantastic).
Thursday started the conference. We broke into small groups based on genre. For obvious reasons, I was in the women’s fiction group with fourteen other women and two somewhat-baffled men. I have never met a more interesting, diverse group of strangers that quickly set about helping one another. Our fearless leader, Ann Garvin, is a fellow Wisconsinite (Go Badgers!). Dear Reader, I can’t say enough about her guidance, generosity of time, and effortless ability to curse when you least expect it. With the help of all, I not only created a coherent and effective pitch for my book (which I’ll share next week), and changed the title (the novel is now called The Cake Effect), but I met many kindred spirits.
That first day we focused on getting everyone’s pitch clear, short, and effective. We worked in large and small groups, during sessions and over meals. Our brains all melted a little that day. It was a little like boot camp for delusional writers; they broke us down to build us up.
Friday morning we met our first editor, a lovely woman from Penguin. Since this was our first pitch to an editor, we were eased into it. We all stayed in the room, took our turn pitching, and then the editor gave feedback on how we could improve it. We found out later if she wanted to see any of our manuscripts. I got lucky, she asked to see the first 100 pages of my book!!!! More than likely, she’ll read the pages and still say no. With a bit of luck, she may provide some feedback on it. With a lot of luck, she may want to read the entire book. So, dear reader, send your happy thoughts my way.
That afternoon, we reconvened as a small group to hone our pitches some more. Looking back, most of our pitches were unrecognizable from what we read the first day. All of us grew so much.
Saturday and Sunday morning we pitched to three more editors, this time alone in the room with the editor and Ann (poor Ann had to listen to our pitches so many times she could probably give them herself). Most of the time we sat in the hall; waiting our turn. Our group had become so close we would cheer when each person went in. As a testament to Ann, our leader, and how we worked as a group, about 75% of our group was asked by an editor for pages. Based on the other groups, this was extraordinary.
Sunday afternoon, we all went our separate ways. Some taking planes to every corner of the country, others hopping the subway to an apartment. So much of the trip felt like Fate twanging on my string; I had a great group to work with, the best leader from Wisconsin (less than an hour away in fact), and getting a manuscript request.
So, dear reader, the trip went quite well. I have a lot of work to do now too. My first chapter needs to be more engaging, I need to proof the manuscript again, and it’s time to start querying agents.
Let the rejection begin.
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