Making the Perfect Pitch How to catch a literary agent's eye

“This essential guidebook gives writers the edge they need in today’s highly competitive market. If you’re serious about getting published, this is a must-read!” – Jeff Herman, author of Jeff Herman’s Guide to Book Publishers, Editors, and Literary Agents. “Do read this book, which should teach you pretty much everything you’ll need to know.” – Booklist. Katharine Sands, a NYC literary agent with the Sarah Jane Freymann Agency, brings together sage advice from more than 40 literary agents representing bestselling and prize-winning authors of fiction and nonfiction. Contributions from top agents at Trident Media, Meredith Bernstein Literary Agency, Jane Dystel Literary Management, Donald Maass Literary Agency, and other leading agencies will get new writers on the right track when crafting their pitches, query letters, and proposals. The book is full of sample query excerpts, pitching techniques, lists of dos and dont’s, and valuable insights into the tastes and preferences of agents representing all types of books from fiction to nonfiction, children’s books, memoir, poetry collections, and more. This book will help you: • Identify selling points & hooks. • Write an attention-grabbing pitch letter. • Pitch via email or verbally at conferences. • Avoid pet peeves of busy agents. • Understand how to present your writing credentials or author platform. • Understand the mix of business acumen and personal taste that excites an agent and encourages them to want to represent you and your work. This diverse collection highlights both the commonalities and diverse perspectives of individual literary agents. Writers will quickly learn to understand the human element involved in the literary profession, while seeing the need to communicate clearly and confidently the core business requirements needed for any book manuscript or proposal that will be successful in the marketplace. “If you’re hunting for an agent, you need to know how to pitch, and Making The Perfect Pitch gives you the ammunition to be dead on target. – Dee Power, co-author of The Making of a Bestseller. Making the Perfect Pitch will give you that special edge of insider information to help you break through the barriers to find the right literary agent for your manuscript. ABOUT THE EDITOR Katharine Sands is a New York literary agent with the Sarah Jane Freymann Literary Agency. She has been a popular speaker on writing and publishing topics for Poets & Writers, the American Society of Journalists and Authors, and for countless writer conferences from New York to Maui. Katharine has worked with a varied list of authors who publish a diverse array of books including fiction, memoir and nonfiction.

Here's a very useful book for first-time writers. Most how-to books for writers deal with this important subject (finding an agent) in a chapter or two, but Sands, a literary agent in New York, shows that there's a lot more to it than one might expect. Drawing on the experience of a variety of agents (plus one copywriter), she demonstrates that finding an agent involves finding the perfect match between author and representative, between material and market. Think it's easy to write a query letter? Think again: agents get a lot of mail, and you only have one chance to get their attention. Think it's easy to put together a book proposal? Try it sometime, but try not to be too wordy, or too self-promoting, or too been-there-done-that. Do your homework, Sands stresses: don't pitch a genre novel to an agent who deals primarily in nonfiction; do know what other books cover the same ground as yours. But, above all, do read this book, which should teach you pretty much everything you'll need to know. David Pitt
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