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Book Review
Making the Perfect Pitch by Katherine Sands
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Making the Perfect Pitch by Katharine Sands is both a guide on how to craft a pitch letter, as well as a collection of short lessons on how literary agents think, act,and work, and what you can do to pique their interest in your book. While not specifically written with children's book writers in mind, Making the Perfect Pitch includes chapters written by literary agents who represent children's books, including Ethan Ellenberg and Andrea Brown. Ellenberg's chapter, in particular, gives a number of examples of what he considers to be a "good pitch." He also reveals that he has found something of a correlation between the pitch letter and the completed manuscript in terms of the writer's consistency, talent, and imagination. You get the sense that Ellenberg is not just an agent, but a reader who simply loves good books and perhaps got into the business of being a literary agent so that he could personally see to it that talented writers get published.
Each agent's chapter reveals their likes and dislikes, what works for them and what doesn't. Sands herself devotes several chapters to agent interviews, asking the agents how they discover new writers; what they look for in a query letter; what advice they have for writers; and what their personal "wow" factor happens to be.
Andrea Brown's chapter delves into the "rules" regarding how to pitch a book to her agency, though she admits that she dislikes the notion of "rules." She provides basic, common-sense information in her list of rules that at least provides a starting point to a writer who has either never written a query before, or has not had any luck pitching and agent, and perhaps needs to go back to basics and start with a fresh approach.
It could be easy to get lost in the quantity of information that Making the Perfect Pitch imparts onto the reader-slash-writer. One agent's likes may very well be another agent's or editor's dislikes. One example is seen in Robert Shepard's chapter, where Shepard advises to "choose your sample chapters carefully" when sending in a book proposal and sample chapters. SCBWI members may find that this advice is in conflict with an SCBWI publication advising grant applicants that judges generally want to see the opening chapter of the book, noting that "if your first chapter isn’t something that will take a judge’s breath away, it isn’t going to compel an editor to read past it either!”
The seemingly overwhelming amount of information imparted by Making the Perfect Pitch is also the reason why it is a Must Read title, and why it should be a permanent part of your reference collection: there is no single way to pitch, no single way to query. Agents are human, with their own quirks and likes and ear for authenticity of voice. The way to reach them is to understand them, and to understand what they are looking for. Sands has done a remarkable job in bringing together a revealing collection of articles, essays, how-tos and insights by an informative and unique group of agents.
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