So, What’s Your Book About…in 25 Words, Please

Can you do it? Or are you one of those writers who believe you simply can’t get your book’s punch across in so few words? Unfortunately, I’m here to tell you that you MUST do it and here are a few reasons why.

• The reader of your 25 word pitch is a busy, busy person!
• A well crafted 25 word pitch shows what kind of writer you are
• A well crafted 25 word pitch tells the reader everything they need to know about your reader target
• A well crafted 25 word pitch not only gains you publication, it will serve you extremely well as you navigate into the sales phase of being an author

Let’s take these points one at a time.

GETTING ATTENTION QUICKLY!

Literary agents and publishers are business people. They’re used to being spoken to as business people and they don’t like to have their time wasted. There are several things that anger agents and publishers – submissions that do not follow published guidelines; badly written, unprofessional and bland query letters; and an author’s inability to tell what their book is about very cleanly and tightly … in 25 words.

WHAT KIND OF WRITER ARE YOU?

Yes, I completely understand that it’s not easy to take your beautiful, 60,000 – 120,000 word manuscript and reduce it down to a mere 25 words, but think about it. If you can’t, what does it really say about your writing? Is it all over the place? Scattered thoughts? Unedited or badly written? Of course not, so don’t risk giving that impression. You’re no stranger to editing and tightening, so just look at this as a challenge to be extremely succinct … 25 words worth of succinct, in fact. If anyone has even one question about your book after they hear or read your 25 word pitch, it needs more work.

25 LOADED WORDS

This pitch needs to be seriously tight and informative. You must clearly convey three vital things in your pitch. From your pitch they must know

1. The genre of your book (YA, romance, urban fantasy, historic, mystery, etc.)
2. Who will read your book (young adults, women, men, children)
3. What your story is about

Notice that the thing you love to talk about most comes last. We all love to go into excited depth about our story … but in reality, if you’re very brief and sharp about it, the agent or publisher may be compelled to request the manuscript and isn’t that what we’re going for? After all, from the other elements of your pitch, they can see that you understand your genre and the market so you’ll be a good selling author.

NOTE: You have to be an author excited about and willing to market and promote yourself and your book. Otherwise they may simply pass. Even a great novel that doesn’t sell can be of no benefit to anyone and publishers can’t take those kinds of risks any longer. Budgets are tight and agents and publishers are careful about only producing work by authors willing to carry the marketing responsibility. Why do you think big publishing houses are signing self-published authors with fantastic sales records?

Oh, and one more note, Google yourself. Make sure you have a strong web presence because if an agent or publisher does decide they’re interested in your work, that’s the first thing they do … Google.

WHAT GOOD IS THAT 25 WORD PITCH AFTER GETTING PUBLISHED?

Or, I can take that question a little further. Let’s say you plan to self-publish or are already self-publish successfully? What do you need that 25 word pitch for anyway?

A really great 25 word pitch does a lot for an author no matter how they’re published! You may not be querying literary agents or publishers, but you still query. You query to gain reviews for your book. You query to seek speaking engagements or request an opportunity to promote your book. Your 25 word pitch is a wonderful intro when requesting an opportunity to sell your book to book clubs.

You’re always in a position to answer the question, “What’s your book about?” It’s vital to be prepared.

Taking things a little further, the perfect 25 words make the ideal Tweet or Facebook post. It looks wonderful on your book website, on a business card or email tag. A great 25 word pitch is all you need to create a strong book video. These 25 words are the all important core for press releases or announcements.

25 little words, but it must be the perfect 25 words. Can you do it? Sure you can, you wrote a whole book and you can do this too! Trust me, the effort will be worth it!

Questions? I’m here and I’d love to answer them!

Up Next: What is an Author Platform and Why do you Need it?

Deborah Riley-Magnus, Author Success Coach

Author Bio

Deborah Riley-Magnus is an author and an Author Success Coach. She has a twenty-seven year professional background in marketing, advertising and public relations as a writer for print, television and radio. She writes fiction in several genres as well as non-fiction. Her non-fiction, Finding Author Success: Discovering and Uncovering the Power Within Your Manuscript is being released on November 5, 2011. She’s lived on both the east and west coast of the United States and has traveled the country widely. She is a native of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and just returned after living in Los Angeles, California for several years.