And here's the pitch!

[tyrlaan]

Okay, so I'm about to toss my first submission over the wall to WotC and I'm putting together my email pitch (as per their guidelines). Which leads me to my newb question.

In their guidelines they recommend a 500 word maximum on your pitch. 500 words seems like a heapton of words for a pitch. Isn't a pitch supposed to be as brief as possible? Basically, enough to get your point across and, ideally, pique the reader's interest in the process?

So I suppose I'm looking for a bit of a sanity check on this. For those of you out there who have submitted, what did you do for your pitches? Short and sweet? Something else?

 

[Phreddkroe]

I'd say just keep it as short as possible while getting the point you want to make across. I got a response on one that I thought was a bit too long; but, I had shortened it down as far as I could without leaving out something. Think of it like you're actually writing an article and the editor has given you a strict 500 word limit. Write it out, then revise, re-read, revise again, and so on until it's perfect. Make sure everything is spelled correctly and you use proper grammar.

Chris Sims posted a blog about how to write pitches for WotC on his blog. I'll see if I can dig it up and post the link here.


EDIT: Here's the link: Chris Sims - The Pitch

 

[RangerWickett]

I've tried various things for my pitches and have not yet gotten a reply to any of them, so I have no idea what works. But you should be ready in case you get no response at all.

 

[Phreddkroe]

I've tried various things for my pitches and have not yet gotten a reply to any of them, so I have no idea what works. But you should be ready in case you get no response at all.

This. Don't feel bad about not hearing anything back. It took me dozens of pitches before ever getting a reply on one. Go ahead and start working on the next one instead of waiting to hear back on the previous one. Because it probably won't happen.

 

[Shroomy]

What kind of article are you pitching? Are you pitching a short Dragon article or a Dungeon adventure/feature? If its the former, you want to trend shorter but if its the latter you'll probably need those words to convey what you're trying to do. In both cases, you want to walk a fine line between being concise and being evocative.

 

[tyrlaan]

Thanks all for the solid replies!!

Definitely going into this prepped to get no response. Also definitely moving on to start work on my next one, and next one, etc. I've got a lot of ideas that just seem to be pouring out of me now that I decided to give this a go

Shroomy, good question. At the moment I'm working on a Dragon submission. I see what you're saying about an adventure submission - 500 words could come in handy for that.

But Chris Sims article has definitely reframed some thoughts in my mind about how to put my pitches together, which is definitely a good thing. I would say I was sort of on the right track, but with this information I can take that a step further.

 

[Riastlin]

As Shroomy stated, a lot depends on how long you anticipate the finished product being. After all, 500 words comes out to roughly two pages IIRC. If your proposed article is 3 pages, then two pages for pitch will seem fairly lengthy. What they don't want in the pitch is the actual article/adventure/etc. which is why they put a limit on the pitch length.

That being said, to the extent that its possible, if you can keep your pitch to one page, it makes it that much easier for those reviewing the pitches to keep track of (don't have to worry about a page going missing, etc.)

Ultimately though, publishing is quite often about getting the right person to review the right pitch at the right time. You might have an absolutely brilliant pitch for an article on Eladrin, but if they are not looking to add more Eladrin content at the time they review your pitch (because they just committed to a couple Eladrin articles the week before), then they won't accept it.

Most importantly though, Good Luck! and I hope you enjoy the process regardless of whether your pitch is accepted or not.

 

[tyrlaan]

Thanks for the well wishes The first pitch is off!