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How to Write a Pitch (Advice)
How to Write a Pitch
There are many different kinds and sizes of pitches. You may have heard the term “Elevator Pitch”, and that is one of the most important ones, but that alone will not serve you.
The four pitches you need to know as a writer are: the drive-by, the elevator pitch, the follow, the treatment.
You will write them, practice them, memorize them, and have them ready at all times. This is not negotiable.
The Drive-By
Highway billboards (which are more common in the US than elsewhere) have a seven word limit to get their message across.
Before you argue that “But I’ve seen lots of billboards with more words than that”, I must answer “That’s because the agency and clients didn’t know what they were doing.” Their only excuse is that they are hoping to catch the eyes of passengers – but even then, they didn’t think it through. Why? Because people don’t see and certainly don’t remember more than that.
Decades ago, a study was done on magazine ads, and it was discovered that the average time a person saw an ad was in micro-seconds. Ads that stopped a reader to learn about it were seen an average of 2.5 seconds. Ads that were considered effective were if they held a person for 4 seconds or longer. That was enough for the reader to learn what they needed about the ad and decide if they wanted to store it in long term memory for later. That’s it. 4 seconds.
Ever since, even magazine ads reduced their headlines to 7 words or less, and reduced their taglines to 4 or less. (“Coke is it!” “I’m lovin’ it!”)
You need a pitch that explains THE VALUE of you/your project in 7 words or less. Seems impossible? That’s fine – you just want to be memorable and engaging and get them to say “tell me more”.
7 words or less to get them to ask for more.
The Elevator-Pitch
True story. The term “Elevator Pitch” comes from Madison Avenue. For some reason I don’t know, many many ad agencies on Madison Avenue were on the 31-35 floors. Weird – but that’s true. That’s where I worked. Competition for clients was fierce between agencies and even within agencies. A creative would do anything to pitch their work to a client or a boss. It took 20 seconds for the elevator to travel 33 floors – so that what they practiced. A client was going to a meeting at a rival agency? You had 20 seconds to sell them on yours before their meeting. Your boss gave your dream project to another staff member, you had 20 seconds to win it away as they left for lunch.
20 seconds is not a lot of time, especially when you have to add pleasantries, delays, and the all important response “That’s sounds great! Let’s meet…”
So those 20 seconds was reduced to 20-25 words.
As an author, you will meet thousands of people who ask “What do you write?” And “What is your book about?” You have 20-25 words to sell them on it before they get bored. They could have just been polite and not wanted to know or they could be instantly turned off by the idea – and so going on longer is terrible for you reputation. Don’t do it.
20-25 words to get them to ask for more.
The Follow
So they say “tell me more” – what then? This is not the time to pontificate for hours.
They want to know everything but will only give you 2-5 minutes.
So you corner your boss in the elevator and impress her. She says “walk with me to the deli”. You now have 2-5 minutes of their uninterrupted time to explain the details before they put food in their mouths or get stopped by them suddenly having to give their OWN pitch to a client or boss.
So 2-5 minutes is a huge distance. You will need to be flexible.
This is where you plan your pitch like a research paper. You have your opening paragraph proposing the value. You spend three paragraphs detailing the value. Then you spend a paragraph summarizing the value. If you are pitching a creative work – the 1 paragraph will be character, setting, goal, and plan. The 3 paragraphs in the middle should be the outline of the plot including conclusion. The last paragraph should be summation. If you use the 7-point plot structure (or variations), then this should be pretty easy apply.
If you only get out the first paragraph, you have at least told them the character, setting, goals, and plan. (Which should have been in the elevator pitch but at least this reinforces it). If you get interrupted during the plot, you should always be able to leap to the summary, and bow out.Today that 2-5 minutes is also called 200-500 words – with 200-250 being preferred.
This applies to agents, publishers, potential readers, bookstore, interviewers, kickstarters, patrons… EVERYTHING.
Average: 2.5 minutes (200-250 words)… and PRACTICE.
The Treatment
This is your entire story – summarized.
It will be different lengths depending on the project – but it is always a long format. If you are writing a treatment about your life (e.g., biography) or your book, it’s all the same.
I recommend it never being longer than 2 pages – but epics don’t always fit into that.
I won’t go over all of the ways to write them (there are whole books on the subjects you can buy), but here are some popular examples:
A. One paragraph per primary plot point. A novel can have 50+ chapters and dozens of subplots. Reduce the story to just the main plot and write one paragraph for each of the main plot points You may end up with 5 or 50. If you have room, then maybe add in a subplot or two for color. Some readers (e.g., some agents and editors) will demand every sub-plot included. Great. Do it that way for them.
B. One content unit for every chapter. That can mean one sentence, one clutch of sentences, or one paragraph – but every chapter will be represented.
C. One paragraph for every facet of your life: family, education, career, each novel, etc.
D-ZZ. Other ways. I’m not an expert.
These you don’t need to practice as much (but you should internalize it to bring top in interviews). You should do multiple versions for different situations and keep them on your phone (PDFs are best) and be ready to email them to whomever asks for one instantly.
[Please let me know if you find any typos or have any questions.]
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1 Reply
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I’ve heard of the elevator pitch, but not the other three. Great tips on how to write them. Thanks!
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