The next Pitch Wars is around the corner, so I thought I would share my experiences with it. I have seen many tweets by fellow writers stating that they are unsure about entering Pitch Wars this year. Some are concerned that there will be a high number of entrants this year and are worried their chances of being picked are going to be low.
So I decided to talk about my Pitch Wars experience as someone who was not selected as a mentee last year. I wanted to say, it's okay. I'm going to tell you why too.
Pitch Wars:
If you are new to the writing community and reading this, I'm sure you are probably asking yourself, what is Pitch Wars?
Pitch Wars is a writing event that happens once a year.
Every year a group of authors (agented and/or published), editors, and other industry interns in publishing, come together to offer their time to mentor writers that are in the querying trenches. They select a single writer to be their mentee, who they help with preparing their query packets for submissions. This includes beefing up the query letter, offering suggestions on editing the novel by reading the full manuscript, helping with the mentee's pitch, and preparing the mentees for the big event at the end...The agent showcase!
During the showcase, Agents will get to look at the mentee's pitches and the first page of their manuscripts on the pitch wars website. The agents can view the posts and make requests for submissions. Which could in turn, lead to mentees getting signed, and book deals.
If you are interested in learning more about the event, and want to know what you need to do to submit, you can click the link below.
Also be sure to follow the pitch wars twitter handle for dates and announcements.
My Experience:
When I went into Pitch Wars I hadn't really interacted with too many others of the writing community outside of the pitching events on Twitter. I was still relatively new to the writing community on Twitter, and most my beta readers were just friends and family.
Pitch Wars was different. You need positivity and support? This is the event for you! Everyone is super supportive of each other. This could also be due in part to their big Anti-bullying position. It's also important to remember that everyone is in the same boat here. We should not be tearing each other down, and just lifting each other up. There is a reason why querying is referred to as being in the trenches. It is HARD. You will get more rejections than affirmations for your story while you are querying.
If you search #PitchWars right now on twitter, you will find a large number of writers (some already agented authors) offering free query critiques and reviews for those looking to enter Pitch Wars. I recommend requesting for help. It's good to get a fresh set of eyes on your project before you submit. I did several revisions to my query and first pages leading up to Pitch Wars thanks to fresh eyes looking at my submission packet.
After you submit, leading up to the announcement of the mentees, the Pitch Wars twitter community of writers were constantly posting events allowing the submitting writers to tell other people about their books. You got to share what you were reading, who your characters are, what your book is about. Everyone hyped each other up. It was a lot of positive affirmation. I found so many great people in the writing community during this time that I continue to follow, and get support from.
Photo by Rahul Pandit from Pexels
Another fun part of Pitch Wars was interacting with the mentors. Some mentors liked to post teasers on their feeds about the pages they were reading. For some that might be anxiety inducing, but I found it fun. They had gif posts in twitter threads about how the work they were reading made them feel. It was kind of fun trying to guess if they were talking about your work or not.
I also just want to say, the mentors are awesome people, in general. They are offering their free time to help a writer achieve their dream. Last year some of them went above and beyond, by offering to pair people together as critique partners. They did this for everyone that submitted to them that was not selected as a mentee. I thought that was a really great gesture.
I feel its important to mention, if you are not selected for Pitch Wars, it does not mean that your story is bad and not worth publishing. There were plenty of people that I saw last year that didn't get selected, but they still found an agent and are on their way to being published. Go into Pitch Wars with an open mind, and take the opportunity to meet others in our writing community dealing with the same struggles as you.
I'm still seeking representation, and I will be participating in Pitch Wars again this year. I can't wait to see all the great pitches that are going to come across my feed. If you are still on the fence about submitting, that's okay too. You don't need to do Pitch Wars to get an agent.
I hope this post helped with some people who are hesitant about submitting. As always feel free to reach out to me on my Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram if you are seeking assistance in writing. If you are looking for a query review, or first pages, I'm always willing to help. <3
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