What is NOT in a Pitch?

It's unnatural.

You spend years polishing your writing until your eyes bleed. You spend hours upon hours B-I-C (bottom in chair) getting words to flow from your brain through your arms and out your fingers. And now you have to sell it.

In person. Using your mouth.

For those of us that form words with letters instead of lips, that's unnatural.

Deep dark secret time. Last WisRWA I pitched for the first time in few years. I admit I spent days writing my pitch, honing each word until it contained hero conflict, heroine conflict, setting, and above all, hook. Until it said exactly what I wanted in under five minutes. Then I worked days memorizing it until I had it word-for-word perfect.

And then, when I sat down opposite the agent, I forgot it all.

Well heck. Other people knew how to do this, not only did it, but did it successfully. What did I need to learn to be able to pitch, too?

Here's one big thing I learned just last week. I was reading on the WisRWA Facebook page and found Carla Cullen's link to agent Vickie Motter's eye-opening post, May Conferences: The Verbal Pitch.

My problem? A pitch is not a blurb.

Let me repeat that. A pitch is not a blurb.

Blurbs have great word choice, sparkling word choice. But pitches? Pitches sparkle because of you. Because you know and love your story. It's a conversation with your new friend the agent or editor about your story.

Which ties in with Mary Jo Scheibl's (who writes as Casey Clifford) advice to me,"Be yourself...[and] Ask questions."

So make it a dialog. Your friend is asking a few questions about your story.
Where is your story set?
Who's your hero/heroine? What's special about him/her?
What is the hero/heroine's problem?
What's the genre? or Who writes books like yours?

Best thing about pitch being not-a-blurb: you can ask your friend a couple questions too. What have you always wanted to ask a publishing business professional?

Stacking Hats--How to Survive Crunch Times

TODO:

• WisRWA conference June 1-3--Board Meeting and two pitch sessions. NOTE: Must finish second draft of Alphas Don't Wear Bows and write pitch before May 31.
• Black Diamond Jinn--get up on Barnes and Noble. Schedule ads. Pull excerpts. Send out review copies? Need to research that.
• Biting Oz--final ARC returned, have approved excerpt and final Word file but not final books. Need to schedule posting of approved blurb and excerpts, not too early. Pull secondary excerpts. Parties scheduled, but need to prepare. Oh well, that's August. Must remember to blog on compilation of awesome editor Christa's brilliant edits. Waiting for final cover--remember to post on blog when received! Contact ad sites to determine lead times. Thank goodness Samhain takes care of sending out to reviewers.
• Newsletter! Almost forgot that. Not until August though, so there's a little time yet.
• Publish short story Oz Bites on Amazon and B&N. Hope it's faster and easier with experience. That's not until July.
• Camp NaNo--June. What would I do without Mrs pushing me to get fresh stuff written? Get bogged down in promo, probably. Writing Rocky's story (already started, is that allowed?), Biting Love Book 7. Must do preplanning. What? When???
• WisRWA--new task! Asked to moderate one of the workshops. Can I do that??

If you're an introvert like me, the above might look overwhelming. That's okay, normal, natural and nothing to be afraid of. It's because of a couple things.

1) Your stimulus-to-reaction brain path goes through an extra loop. You do more work for each and every task than an extrovert does!

2) If you're highly sensitive, which a lot of introverts are, you simply notice more. You have more inputs to deal with! So you look at the task list above and you see all the people in the crowds for the workshop and will you have to moderate questions, and and AND.

What's the secret of getting through this without freaking? I used a technique at my concert Saturday which worked wonders. I gave myself an hour of me-time before getting dressed in my concert blacks. And then I limited my field of input and concentrated ONLY on the task at hand.

That's right. Give yourself permission for me-time before (and after). And give yourself permission to filter out the world while you're doing something hard.

So today, I'm focusing completely on a few tasks. I'm working on this blog and another due next week at The Book Binge as part of a June Read-a-Thon (is that on my website News page?). After that I'll finish responding to emails and pull a Jinn excerpt for Blackraven Erotic Cafe for an Author Spotlight.

But no matter what, after lunch I'm working on Alphas. Nothing centers me like writing a good book :)

Black Diamond Jinn (A Hot SF/Fantasy Novella) Excerpt #2

33% OFF CODE MM25D Now to June 1
At Smashwords (Coming to Amazon, B&N and other distributors soon!)

Have sex, avert doom, save the world.

Black Diamond Jinn (A Hot SF/Fantasy Novella)

Copyright © 2012 by Mary Hughes

The Mayan Doom is real. Government witch Amaia Jones has the spreadsheet to prove it.

Amaia is a desk-bound research wizard, living uncomfortably in the shadow of her famous Venus-magic parents, when she discovers the world is ending. Tonight. But her bulldog of a boss not only refuses to believe her, he won’t give her the secret to calling the one force powerful enough to help—the jinn. Amaia turns to her mental guardian angel, Rafe, the darkly handsome presence who has comforted her since her parents died.

Rafe has a secret of his own. He’s a black diamond jinn, one of the deadliest and most powerful of his kind. He’s detected a ruthless enemy using blood sacrifice and stoking Y12 public panic in order to summon the nightmare gods. Rafe needs to get into the human realm to stop the Doom. But when Amaia finally calls him, she’s threatened by his scorching sensuality.

Amaia’s guardian angel is a stunning jinni and suddenly her job is way more complicated. Jinn are known for taking their pound of flesh in exchange for magical help, but the only flesh Rafe wants is hers, taut with delight. Venus magic is the very thing that drove a wedge between Amaia’s parents, but her alternatives are rapidly dwindling. With four hours to go on humanity’s darkest night, the only alternative to surrendering her flesh may be surrendering her life.

This title contains explicit sexual language and may not be suitable for all readers.

Enjoy the following excerpt for Black Diamond Jinn (A Hot SF/Fantasy Novella):

** Rafe **

Today was Rafe’s birthday. His human birthday, his three thousand nine hundredth…and some-odd. He’d lost track of the years but marked each anyway.

Trying to remember his humanity. There was a losing battle.

Around him swirled millions of stars, diamonds sparkling in the black velvet of space’s infinite night. The glittering dance of spangled dust and gas was a ballet that had lured many a jinni to stare upon its beauty forever.

Rafe had promised himself he’d never be one of them. That he’d never lose himself in the stars, never forget Earth’s people.

That he’d never be like his father.

But it was so long ago. The centuries had taken their toll. He stopped visiting except once each earth year, but even then the visit was rote, memory’s husk of an increasingly barren promise.

Until she was born.

She was so…human. Toddling into trouble, into scrapes and bruises, but always dusting herself off, laughing, and toddling on. Later she was running headlong into trouble but still always laughing, dusting off, moving.

Today he was strangely eager. Eager to scale down, to bend his eye toward the small dull rock of his birth. 

To see her.

He shifted focus. Well, imagine that. She was in trouble again.

The whole planet is in trouble. The voice shimmered from the depths of space, like a cell phone that had the stars as relay towers. Destruction threatens your home.

“Jibril.” Rafe bowed low at the voice. As old and vast as Rafe was, Jibril was greater by far. He’d sacrificed himself to save humanity and had passed to a plane so high he could no longer descend to the physical. Even maintaining his presence here on the ethereal was hard for him, like fitting a lion in a shoebox.

But Jibril was right. Humanity vibrated a sick, washed-out brown on the ethereal. Rafe frowned. “What’s wrong with them?”

I’m not sure. From here I can only see the sickness. The result.

“The cause must be on the physical plane. I’ll have to descend.”

How will you do that? A physical cause usually has a specific location. Unless you’re called by a physical being, you could end up anywhere.

“Then I’ll just have to make sure I’m called, won’t I?”

Bonus! Mayan Calendar extends beyond 2012? Read the stunning Mayan discovery at Cosmic Log.

3T Writing Tidbit

I've been published since 2009 but I've been writing for a lot longer. Over the years I've accumulated various items of wisdom from all over. Third Tuesday Writing Tidbit will showcase these items one at a time in no particular order.

Question: I've finished the first draft of my novel--how do I know when it's ready to send out?

One of my early finds on the Internet is Holly Lisle. I resonated with her answers and she was the first person I found who answered all the questions I had. Here's Holly's take on how to revise a novel.

Black Diamond Jinn (A Hot SF/Fantasy Novella) Excerpt!

 Have sex, avert doom, save the world.

Black Diamond Jinn (A Hot SF/Fantasy Novella)

Copyright © 2012 by Mary Hughes

The Mayan Doom is real. Government witch Amaia Jones has the spreadsheet to prove it.

Amaia is a desk-bound research wizard, living uncomfortably in the shadow of her famous Venus-magic parents, when she discovers the world is ending. Tonight. But her bulldog of a boss not only refuses to believe her, he won’t give her the secret to calling the one force powerful enough to help—the jinn. Amaia turns to her mental guardian angel, Rafe, the darkly handsome presence who has comforted her since her parents died.

Rafe has a secret of his own. He’s a black diamond jinn, one of the deadliest and most powerful of his kind. He’s detected a ruthless enemy using blood sacrifice and stoking Y12 public panic in order to summon the nightmare gods. Rafe needs to get into the human realm to stop the Doom. But when Amaia finally calls him, she’s threatened by his scorching sensuality.

Amaia’s guardian angel is a stunning jinni and suddenly her job is way more complicated. Jinn are known for taking their pound of flesh in exchange for magical help, but the only flesh Rafe wants is hers, taut with delight. Venus magic is the very thing that drove a wedge between Amaia’s parents, but her alternatives are rapidly dwindling. With four hours to go on humanity’s darkest night, the only alternative to surrendering her flesh may be surrendering her life.

This title contains explicit sexual language and may not be suitable for all readers.

Note: The following excerpt includes strong language.

December 21, 2012

7:45 p.m. Eastern Standard Time

“The Mayan Doom is real, Chief. I have proof!” I shoved the stack of papers under my boss’s nose, spreadsheet on top. Not because I’m a dick (just the opposite, in fact—unless you counted Mervyn’s opinion that my lady parts clanked when I walked) but because I was trying to save the world and Chief Wizard Arnie Wenkermann was as nearsighted as a myopic bull dog and twice as stubborn.

“Damn it, Jones!” The Chief jerked back. “Your job is to reassure the public, not fan the nonsense higher.”

His ex-drill sergeant bark nearly blew me away, but I stood firm. “It’s not nonsense. The world is ending tonight. Look.” I shook the papers.

My boss clamped his eyes shut. “Numbers mean nothing to me.”

“Fine.” I pulled out a page. “See the pretty graph?”

He cracked an eye at the plummeting black arrow, squinched it shut again. “That can’t be right. The adepts would’ve noticed it. The ones who bothered showing up for work, anyway.”

“Adepts?” I snorted. “Part-time school kids?”

“You’re barely out of school yourself.” He upped my snort with a Chiefly sneer. “Class of 2012.”

“I’ve had six months in the real world,” I said, stung. “And Mervyn…I mean Wizard Analyst Johnson will back me up. Chief, we’ve already gone beyond what a team of adepts can handle. Look at my numbers and you’ll see—”

“Wizard Jones.” The title was a slap. “It’s just numbers. You’re overreacting.”

“Really Chief, I’m not.” Didn’t he understand that, as a government witch, this was the part of the job that I knew cold? In case it was his myopia and not his stubbornness blinding him, I traced the line with a finger, starting at business-as-usual and plunging to screaming end-of-world oh-shit. “We’ll be past the help of full wizards in a couple of hours. Ground zero in four. We must attack this immediately.”

“Jones, I have enough shit to shovel in the final hours before Y12. I don’t need a newbie witch gone Chicken Little.”

I held my temper, barely. Thank you, mandatory unfunded anger management classes. “Fine. It’s almost too late to chart a neutralization spell anyway, much less set it up. So give me the secret.”

“Secret? What secret?” He slit both eyes, cutting-narrow. Yeah, he knew what secret but wouldn’t say it first. “What are you suggesting?”

No less than counter-doom, but the world was mere hours from getting fucked without a fondle and I was dying anyway. With the cancer eating my lungs and my life, I was down to months, so this was my last chance to make a real difference. No time to hold back. I took a long, shallow breath. “I want to call a jinni.”

“A jinni—! No way.” He went red, paper white, and back to red. “No fucking—”

“Chief Wenkermann, please. We can try other things first, but we have to be prepared to take extreme action. The end of the world—”

“No.” He grabbed my graph, ripped it in two and tossed it behind him. I guess he’d flunked his anger management. “The Mayan calendar is ending, not the world. Even a desk-bound research wizard like you should know better than to panic just because an arbitrary cycle is ending.”

The desk-bound comment pinched but I pushed it aside. “Arbitrary, except John Q. Public doesn’t think so. Something’s shoving mass gullibility darkside, stoking fear and paving the way for the ultimate destruction. The nightmare gods will be loose, Chief. It’ll be Armageddon.”

He popped at the A-word. “For fuck’s sake, Jones. No end-of-world scare has come true, not the 2011 rapture or Y2K or the Disasters of ’88 or Comet Kohoutek in ’73. Y12 is just more of same. The public loves its disaster drama but doesn’t know shit about karmic physics.”

“Hey, Y2K was a real problem that came out okay because smart, dedicated people—both wizards and not—worked years at it. This is a real problem too—and we have less than four hours before all hell breaks loose. I’m not saying a jinni would be my first choice, but we have to be prepared.” I straightened to my full five-two. Even desk jockeys were sometimes combatants in war. “Chief Wenkermann, as a Research Wizard for the National Center for Behavioral Physics, with all the rights that entails, I officially request the secret of calling the jinn.”

“Abso-fucking-lutely not, Jones.”

“Why not? I’ve met all the requirements. I filed a form S-1519J. I have clearance and as a full witch I’m more than capable—”

“I said no!” He speared a hand through the thin strands atop his shiny dome. “Do I need to spell it out? You’re a full witch, ten times as strong as adepts which makes you some hot shit, yeah. Except jinn are a thousand times as powerful, which makes them scary dangerous.”

“But—”

“Shut up and listen. Not only are jinn damned dangerous, they don’t give away jack shit for free. To pay the karmic balance that jinni’ll take a pound of your flesh. The harder the task the more he’ll carve. End of the world?” He made a loud, rude sound. “End of your world, because you’ll be the one to die.”

Dying already, so that didn’t scare me. But I wanted to save everyone else the grief. I wedged my original spreadsheet under his nose. “Armageddon is coming, Chief. Humanity has exercised its free will and united behind a single idea—fear. We think the world will end so it will. The nightmare gods set free, the world plunged into chaos, terror darkening each and every human mind and soul.”

He snatched the spreadsheet and ripped it too. “For the last time, Jones, it won’t come to that. That’s what we’ve been working on, what you’re supposed to be working on—Project Y12 Serenity, remember? Which has been entirely successful, so your numbers are wrong. They must be wrong. For fuck’s sake, do you think I’d send the teams home if we were in danger?”

“Nobody’s chanting Serenity on seven?” My cheeks iced. We’d had round-the-clock Serenity chanting on the seventh floor since the first squeak of Doom. If Chants, Rites and Rituals had stopped production…no wonder the graph was plummeting.

“Listen up, Jones. The problem’s solved. Damned good thing too. The overtime was eating my budget alive. Which reminds me—it’s quarter to eight and you’re not salaried. Go home.”

“I can’t. Those numbers clearly show—”

“Shut it.”

“Just give me the secret—”

“No. And in case you have a problem with English, nein, non, nyet, fucking N-O!” He spun and stalked away.

“Oh, you’re no better than the Mayan kings,” I shouted, snatching up the torn halves of my proof. “Stupid knowledge hoarder.”

He spun at his office door, every inch the sergeant, so much that I expected him to bark “down and give me twenty”. He gave me the civilian equivalent. “Go home!” He slammed into his office hard enough to rattle the window.

“Wenkermann!” I balled up the ruined pages and tossed them into a recycling bucket ten feet away, hitting it dead center. “Don’t you dare shut me out. This is serious. The Mayan Doom—”

The door slapped open. “I said no. Since you have trouble with that word, let me use another one. Suspend. As in, if I hear another word about any Mayan Doom, you’re suspended.”

I stopped breathing. “You can’t—”

“You want me to use another word? Like fired?”

Air exploded from my lungs along with every Joule of body heat. “I don’t—”

“Then don’t. Listen to me, Jones. You are not, under any circumstances, to call a jinni. You are not to ask anyone for the secret. In fact if I even hear a whisper of you and jinn in the same sentence you are fired. Is that clear?”

“Yes.” All too.

He raised his voice to carry to the rest of the cubicle farm, where the handful of wizards too junior to escape the holiday ghost town were heads-down pretending to work. “Calling a jinni is fucking dangerous, people. I hear anybody in my office has tried, they’re fired. You—” he poked a stiff finger at me “—have too much time on your hands if you think anything is happening at midnight besides the Maya starting a new calendar.”

“And the Ball dropping,” I said automatically.

“What?” He bit the word off. “What the hell are you talking about?”

Should have kept my mouth shut. But having started I bulled on. “At midnight. You said nothing’s happening but a new Mayan calendar, but the Times Square Ball is dropping too. That’s why the public has glommed onto Midnight EST as The Time. Why it’s vital to nip this in the next four hours. Once midnight passes we’re safe but—”

“Rein it in, Jones! You are over-the-top catastrophizing. Obviously you need some real work to keep you busy. I’m assigning you to the karmic math project, effective immediately. One helper. And listen up—any work outside normal hours will not be paid.”

“Chief, no. Not FKME.” Should definitely have kept the old trap door shut.

Project FKME, full title Project to Facilitate Karmic Mathematics Education, was originally designed to help adults understand karmic math. It had turned into the mindless job of taking spreadsheets and kerchunking out stupidly simple graphs. Insert a UC after the F and you’ll get the picture of what we all thought of FKME. “I have way too much to do. You can’t—”

“Fight me on this, Jones, and I’ll take away the helper. Dismissed.” Bang.

***Check back next Thursday for another excerpt!

Biting Oz, Black Diamond Jinn Update

Biting Oz is through final line edits! One more edit pass until the final book. I'm expecting a first draft cover any day. (For those of you interested in the editing process, I've included a brief outline of the stages below.)

Some tidbits to whet your appetite. This book has what my brilliant editor calls "one of the best sex scenes I've ever read". It also contains "entr'actes" from the hero Glynn's perspective, and a scene featuring the first-ever meeting of the V-spouses of Meiers Corners and Nearby Surrounds. The topic--vampire/human aging. The last two are in response to reader letters and questions, so please keep your feedback coming!

Black Diamond Jinn (A Hot Fantasy/SF Novella) is through beta reading and a few steps away from putting up on Smashwords and Amazon. I'm excited that a good friend has kindly given me a chapter of her latest book to include in the back.

A few tidbits. My cherished beta reader picked out several T-shirt phrases in the book, so you know there's snappy dialog. She also identified the book as SF/Fantasy--this isn't a paranormal romance. Don't worry--there's a hero and heroine and happy ending. But it's a different sort of story from Meiers Corners. I'll post an excerpt soon so you can get an idea of what I mean!



Ebook First Publisher editing sequence (from the author's perspective):
1. I write the book. 2. I read through the book for continuity and to make sure the plot hangs together. 3. I submit the book. 4. My editor may have changes she wants done before she'll buy it. 5. I make the changes and do step 2. 6. My editor buys the book. (This step is different for each publisher. Some buy on an outline, some require a multi-editor approval.) 7. She makes her first edit pass and returns the manuscript to me to fix. 8. I fix or explain and send back. 9. She makes her second edit pass with finer detail changes. 10. I fix and return. 11. A line editor goes through the manuscript with a fine-tooth comb and returns it to my editor who adds how she wants me to fix things. (The editorial process differs by publisher as well. For some it will be several editors, for some a single editor steps through the whole process.) 12. I fix the line edits. If there are any questions at this point my editor and I might make another short pass between us to address them. 13. The book goes to the publisher who puts together an Advance Reading Copy. 14. I read the ARC for typos. No tweaking allowed at this point! 15. The book is rendered in a wide variety of ebook formats and sent to sales outlets across the globe. 16. Yay! 17. Several months before the print version comes out I get galleys. 18. I read the galleys for typos. 19. The paperback book is printed and goes to sales outlets around the world.

May 1T Giveaway!

Welcome to the First Tuesday giveaway! Each first Tuesday of the month I'm offering a contest where I choose one winner (who hasn't won in the past twelve months) by random number from all comments on that post. The winner will receive his or her choice of one Biting Love ebook *or* a $5 gift certificate from Amazon or Samhain!

If you're a 18+ and an adult, and if you consent to having your name listed on the rotating 12-month winner list, just comment on this post to enter! Void where prohibited. Please note, the Biting Love books contain explicit sex and violence. If you win please consider that when making your prize selection. Winner chosen at the end of the month and posted as part of next month's contest.

And April's winner is--Tiana! Congratulations, Tiana! I'll be contacting you at your entry email to get your choice of prize, or you can write me at mary@maryhughesbooks.com.