It’s Friday, so I am back with The Writer Blog Prompt Project. Today’s topic of Elevator Pitch.

Let’s go!

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E Is For Elevator Pitch

In case you’ve never come across this concept, an Elevator Pitch is a type of sales pitch. The idea is that you condense your story idea down to a short snappy sentence (that’s it, just ONE line!), that can be, technically, delivered during a short elevator (lift, for us Brits) ride.

Imagine you managed to corner some poor literary agent in the elevator at a conference and told them you have a great book you’d love them to read. And they sigh, glare at you but then say, “you got 20 seconds to convince me”.

Boom!

This is where you pull out for elevator pitch (pull from your brain, it’s not cool to pull out notes at this point). Also, don’t corner people and force them to listen to your pitch, that was not good life advice!

An elevator pitch needs to be striking, catch attention and convey all important details that will make the other person go “wow, really? I wanna read that book! Gimme!”

Okay, you are NOT cornering people – so why would you need an elevator pitch? Especially if you are going self-published, and thus will not be idling stalking literary agents in elevators.

Let’s be honest, who hasn’t said “I’m a writer” and been instantly hit with “oh yeah, what’s your book about?”

You could stare blankly at them while your brain screams in defiance at having to boil down your story on the fly.

Or, you could do what *I* do and ramble incoherently with lots of tangients, disjointed threads and end up sounding like you wrote the worst book in existence.

I don’t recommend EITHER of these.

An elevator pitch is great for people who ask about your book. It is also good if you are trying to snag ARC readers or just grab readers’ attention, as they scroll fast on social media!

And what about if you get invited for some big TV interview (that sounds terrifying!) and they expect you to talk about your book but hey, you aren’t given loads of time. (Might happen, you never know!)

So, how do you go about writing one?

It’s recommended that you try and keep the pitch to around 20 words or less. You want it to be strong and memorable and leave an impact!

Personally, I wouldn’t use terms like “Hunger games meets ACOTAR” or any other comparison. Try and get your story to stand on its own merits and come across as unique, not just another retelling of a mix of other books.

Don’t forget, this is NOT a blurb, you want to leave the person you cornered… who asked you about your book, wanting to know more.

Some things to consider – try and identify your main character, though you don’t need to refer to them by name. In fact, it can be better describing them in a different way.

For example, a cynical TV weatherman gets trapped living the same day over again.

That’s obviously an elevator pitch for the movie Groundhog Day. I didn’t mention his name, I identified him by what he does.

Maybe your MC is a wayward child, or a tired teacher, or a homeless veteran. These can work better as an identifier.

Consider the main conflict in your story and shove that in the elevator pitch. From my example above, I don’t need to mention that Phil (the weatherman) visits town of Punxsutawney every year to cover the story of the Groundhog, or that there’s a storm that forces him and his team to stay in Punxsutawney rather than leaving. None of that is as important as the time loop.

Oh, and if you have a group of characters where there isn’t clearly a main character, you can refer to them as a group.

For example, four teenagers and their talking dog solve supposed supernatural mysteries.

That example of the show, Scooby-Doo, doesn’t highlight any one person (though Scooby is mentioned, obvs!) because all four of the teenagers are kinda equal in terms of main characters (though you could make an argument that Shaggy is a little more main character-y than the others… but I digress).

Okay, with all that… let me *gulp* share my elevator pitches… well, two of them! (yes, they are terrible… just because I can talk about elevator pitches does NOT mean I’m good at writing them)

Dark Hart – a former private investigator gets tangled in the dangerous politics of preternatural creatures when the strongest amongst them is murdered. (20 words)

The Blessed – a sheltered young woman, marked to become a powerful Blessed, escapes the pressure by hiding out in the underworld. (19 words) – yes this is a TERRIBLE Elevator pitch but I was rushing. :p

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Thanks to anyone who took the time to read this article. If you aren’t joining the Project, let me know your own thoughts about drop caps in the comments below!

Next week’s topic is the Front Matter

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