With #PitMad around the corner, I thought I could share a little bit about my experience…Some of you may remember my pitches from #PitMad June 20 and Mar 21. I can tell you now that it wasn’t the first time, I’d participated in Twitter pitch parties. Over the years, I’ve participated in #PitMad, #WMPitch, #DVpit without much luck.

It was always so hard for my tweets to get any traction. For years I tried and tried again. Different manuscripts, different genres, different pitches (because I wasn’t going to let the dream run away from me) but despite my perseverance, every time I pitched, I’d be lucky if I got 3 likes or a handful of retweets.

Imagine my shock when I posted my tweet as usual (not expecting much) and suddenly my phone went crazy! Comments, likes, retweets, quote tweets… from industry professionals, authors, writing buddies, readers, and in some cases Twitter users who had no idea what PitMad was.

They all loved the pitch, they all loved the story, they thought the concept was epic! I just couldn’t believe it! As far as I knew, I had just written a story the same way I’d done over the past several years. Not once did I think this was THE story!

I was totally BLOWN away.

The tweet went viral so much that I lost some of my agent likes because I was too busy responding to everyone, and thanking them, and not taking note of the agents liking my pitch. Luckily one of my author friends, nudged me and said, “Make sure you’re writing down your agent likes because once you get to a certain number, Twitter will only show you the latest likes.” Oops! By then I was over 100 likes and even though I managed to salvage some agent likes, I lost some as well.

Note: to anyone planning on any Twitter parties: Write down your agent likes as they come. Seriously, just in case …

Even though I’d lost some of my likes which meant my querying list wasn’t as big as it could have been, I was super thrilled with the support from writers and readers alike. Not only that, I knew then, there was an audience for my story and that was a huge boost in confidence. Here’s the tweet and a few highlights:

COMMENTS HIGHLIGHTS

• “Omg I have chills. #NEED”
• “GOOSEBUMPS! This gave me GOOSEBUMPS. I cannot wait to read this, oh my gosh.”
• “Is it wrong to be mad at a pitch because I’m like… and then what happens???? (I’m mad. Which means I need this book.)”
• “I never knew I needed these 2 comps put together! This sounds fantastic!”
• “This! It’s got a Cinderella mystery man and an academic setting with some royalty intrigue afoot. But I love this so much and this is one YA Contemporary that needs to be boosted too.”

https://twitter.com/authorlorraineM/status/1268516004948312066

I remember sending the link to my mum in Zimbabwe and the joy she had when she read all the comments. Finally, my writing was going somewhere.

“It’s finally happening. This is your year,” she said.

And in some respects, it was. My writing career was finally heading in the direction I’d always wanted, but personally, 2020 was filled with a lot of heartache and heart-wrenching personal tragedies in my family, but that’s a post for another day.

For now, if you’re thinking of participating in #PitMad, I’d say please go for it. You never know.

This year could be your year. You really have nothing to lose. If you don’t get likes or retweets or comments it doesn’t necessarily mean that your pitch is bad. There’s a whole lot of luck involved, timing, and we’re all at the mercy of the Twitter Algorithm.

So keep trying and trying again!

Good luck and I’ll be supporting you!

Best wishes,

Lorraine