#Pitmad Is Coming on March 4!

Sadly, #Pitmad has come to an end.

#Pitmad, Twitter's most popular pitch fest, is coming this Thursday. Pitch fests are held for a limited period of time, usually one day, in which you can pitch your book to agents on Twitter.

Believe it or not, pitch fests actually work. Busy, overwhelmed agents and editors are more likely to read and respond to an interesting Twitter pitch than they are to a query. It takes less time and a lot less effort. (During last December's #Pitmad, a publisher contacted me.)

However, boiling your novel down to a short sentence is loaded with pitfalls. So, I would suggest that you read What's Your Book About? How to Make a Pitch for some useful tips.

It is also a good idea to read some pitches first. Get onto Twitter and type #Pitmad along with the category and genre of your own book into a search to read some excellent pitches. (See below for the list of categories and genres.) You can also generate pitches using the pitch tool on YA Writer's Toolbox.

Important: Make sure you read all the rules on the PitchWars website before participating in #Pitmad.

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From the PitchWars website:

#PitMad is the original twitter pitch event, where writers tweet a 280-character pitch for their completed, polished, unpublished manuscripts. No previously published works. Agents and editors make requests by liking/favoriting the tweeted pitch.

Rules:

Your manuscript should be completed, polished, unpublished, and ready to query. If you’re not ready to send the full manuscript immediately, please wait until the next event. For non-fiction, you should have a polished proposal. Memoirs should be completed.

• Your pitch must fit inside one tweet. Do not thread tweets. You don’t have to include the title of your book in the pitch.
• Include the #PitMad hashtag and an age category sub-hashtag (see list at the bottom of this page).
• You may include multiple genre or additional hashtags as they apply (see list at the bottom of this page).
• You can pitch more than one manuscript throughout the day.
• You may only tweet three pitches for each manuscript throughout the day. They can be the same pitch or different pitches.
• We suggest spacing them out every four hours.
• Do NOT attach pictures unless it’s an illustration for a Picture Book, Graphic novel, or other material that includes illustrations.
• Do NOT include links. Many agents use search filters that will render tweets with links invisible to them.

If an industry professional favorites/likes your tweet, check their recent tweets for submission preferences.

If they haven’t tweeted #PitMad submission guidelines, follow their usual query submission guidelines on their website, but put “PitMad Request: TITLE” in the subject line of your email.

Send the request as soon as you can.

If the agent has already rejected your book through traditional querying you should still send the requested materials and include this history in the beginning of your email, as well as a note if you have performed significant revisions since the initial query.

What is considered “previously published?”

• Any piece of work that has been available for sale or free download on a retail site, no matter the amount of sales or type of publisher.
• Any piece of work that has been assigned an ISBN or ASIN, even if the title has changed.
• Any piece of work that has participated in a program that pays royalties, revenue share, or any other sort of payment structure.
• Any longer piece of work based on a published shorter piece of work that amounts to more than 20% of the word count of the longer piece. (e.g. a 100k word novel based on a 15k short story is okay, but a 100k novel based on a 30k novelette is not.)
• The above applies to previously published books that have been since edited or revised.
• Every unagented writer is welcome to pitch. All genres/categories are welcomed.

In an effort to amplify Black voices, we’ve added a #BVM (Black Voices Matter) hashtag. If you are a Black author, please feel free to include #BVM in your tweets so agents/editors can use it to search for pitches.

You can use the following sub-hashtags to categorize your book, making it easier for agents and editors to find your pitch. We only require the #pitmad hashtag and one age category hashtag. The additional hashtags are suggested as a courtesy and listed here in order to reduce confusion.

Age Categories (one is required):

#PB = Picture Book

#C = Children’s

#CB = Chapter Book

#MG = Middle Grade

#YA = Young Adult

#NA = New Adult

#A = Adult

Genres/Sub-genres (optional):

#AC = Action

#AD = Adventure

#BIZ = Bizarro Fiction

#CF = Christian Fiction

#CON = Contemporary

#CR = Contemporary Romance

#E = Erotica

#ER = Erotic Romance

#ES = Erotica Suspense

#F = Fantasy

#FTA = Fairy Tale Retelling

#GN = Graphic Novel

#H = Horror

#HA = Humor

#HF = Historical Fiction

#HR = Historical Romance

#INSP = Inspirational

#MR = Magical Realism

#M = Mystery

#Mem = Memoir

#MA = Mainstream

#LF = Literary Fiction

#NF = Non-fiction

#P = Paranormal

#PR = Paranormal Romance

#PM = Poetry Collection

#R = Romance

#RS = Romantic Suspense

#STEM = Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics

#SF = SciFi

#SHRT = Short Story Collection

#SPF = Speculative Fiction

#SH = Superhero

#S = Suspense

#T = Thriller

#TT = Time Travel

#UF = Urban Fantasy

#VF = Visionary Fiction

#W = Westerns

#WF = Woman’s Fiction

Additional hashtags (optional):

#BVM = Black Voices Matter (to be used by black creators)

#POC = Author is a Person of Color

#OWN = Own Voices

#IMM = Immigrant

#LGBT = LGBTQIA+ subject matter

#IRMC = Interracial/Multicultural subject matter

#MH = Mental Health subject matter

#DIS = Disability subject matter

#ND = Neurodiverse subject matter