Aspiring authors tweet book pitches to literary agency

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jul/24/aspiring-authors-tweet-book-pitches-to-literary-agency

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Could the next Man Booker prize winner or Nibbies star be discovered on social media? That’s what hundreds of unpublished authors are asking themselves as they tweet one-line book pitches to the literary agency Curtis Brown in the hope of gaining representation.

The tweets are part of an online project launched on Friday by Curtis Brown and another UK agency Conville & Walsh, which invites writers to send them pitches for their work in no no more than 140 characters, using the hashtag #PitchCB.

12yo Mia begs a Ouija board for advice to save her family's failing lake resort & unleashes ghost of a 1930s Chicago gangster #MG #PitchCB

The event, hosted by Curtis Brown agents Rebecca Ritchie and Richard Pike, is open to unpublished fiction and non-fiction writers of any genre, and will be held on the fourth Friday of each month. Book agents will read each pitch and invite successful authors to submit directly to them by “favouriting” their tweet.

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“We want to make the process of getting an agent as simple and as painless as possible,” Pike said in a statement. “With many vibrant writer communities already existing on Twitter, it seemed the perfect platform to launch our #PitchCB days.”

Ritchie said the event was an opportunity for authors to refine their “elevator pitch” for their work and to feel less in the dark about which agent to submit their work to.

“Our office has been buzzing all day, we’ve got 15 agents constantly refreshing their web browsers,” she told the Guardian. “Agencies have often felt like closed-door institutions and it’s really important in the 21st century that we open up and make ourselves as accessible as possible.”

#PitchCB (non-f) The Little Book of Big Red Flags: guide to spotting dangerous relationships - in advance. Nothing like this out there atm.

She said the agency gets attendees on its creative writing courses to practice their pitches. “It’s a really good way of pulling an agent in. It’s something that’s been going on in the US for a while but as far as we’re aware no other UK-based pitch parties have been run before.

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“We had no idea it was going to go as big as it has, we’ve had hundreds of pitches so far but at the end of the day we might hit the thousands. There’s some really great things coming through, lots of innovative fantasy and sci-fi ideas, psychological thrillers, some commercial women’s fiction, some darker crime and speculative fiction. There’s a huge breadth. There’s something for everyone.”

Writers interested in Curtis Brown representation are usually asked to submit a cover letter, synopsis and sample material (three opening chapters of a novel or equivalent of 10,000 words) to a selected agent, who will aim to reply within 10 to 12 weeks. But Curtis Brown said it had already responded to quite a few authors on Friday.

“It’s a way of attracting people who wouldn’t necessarily have thought of submitting via the traditional method,” Ritchie said. “There’s absolutely no reason why we wouldn’t be able to find something Booker-prize-winning-worthy through this event.”

To all those #PitchCB ers, remember: Writing is: 1% inspiration, 98% perspiration and 2% attention to detail