Writer Wednesday – Twitter Pitch Parties

If you’ve been writing for more than a few months you are probably familiar with Twitter Pitch Parties – Where authors pitch their unpublished novels to agents and publishers in a tweet.

I’ll be participating in #PitMad on December 7th, as it might be a way to reach agents and publishers that are interested in Steampunk Romance.

I recently talked to a fellow author who had been searching for an agent for over a year and finally found one through a Pitch Party.  My favorite party is #Pit2Pub, but that only comes around two times a year.

This is really like giving your elevator pitch on Twitter.   Here’s mine:

Courtesan of Constantinople-#PitMad #A #R #SP Visit a world of Magic, Mystery & Romance as heroine Laurel Gunn pursues a killer known as the Cleaver.

Here’s Crossing my fingers that my Tweet hits an agent or publisher’s #MSWL

Writer Wednesday – Decoding Agent Lingo.

As I continue down this journey of finding an agent, I have a hard time finding agents with an #mswl (Manuscript Wish List) that includes Steampunk Romance.     Steampunk, yes.  Romance, yes. Not necessarily both. 

Romance is a broad genre and it includes a lot of subgenres.  I usually end up looking for Paranormal Romance, Fantasy Romance or Sci-fi Romance.    Arguably Steampunk fits into all of these but forms don’t usually account for the historical piece of steampunk.   Sigh.  

 

BTW – If anyone out there is writing Steampunk that has YA(Young Adult), NA (New Adult) or even MG (Middle Grade) elements – Agents are looking for you.  

Women’s Fiction seems to be making a come back but I’ve seen these variations; Women’s Commercial Fiction, Women’s Literary Fiction, and Women’s UpMarket Fiction.   I was starting to wonder if these were all snooty code for Romance.   For Your Information they are not.   

UpMarket Fiction is a phrase that bugs me…once I looked it up,  it bugged me even more.  According to my Google search as an adjective it means, “relatively expensive and designed to appeal to affluent consumers.”   Okay… I still have no idea what that means. 

I was speaking to another author recently and she was telling me that she’d received over 83 rejections in a year and then just last month found an agent on a Twitter Pitch Party.    I’ve only sent out a handful of queries…so I have a long way to go. 

I imagine agents are much like readers, they know what they like, and they probably have an easier time selling what they like to read.   So here’s crossing my fingers that I find that agent who loves what I write and can sell it into the market. 

~Tina

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Writer Wednesday – The End

I finally typed “THE END” on my first steampunk novel, “The Courtesan of Constantinople”.

I’ve decided to pursue an agent for this book, so I’ve been making a list.   My list is comprised of agents actively looking for Steampunk.  Also adding those who requested during #Pit2Pub or perhap have Steampunk as a #MSWL.

Because I’m pursuing this route, I thought I would keep the inquiring minds among you up-to-date as I progress through this ‘new’ process for me.

Until the next update be naughty! ~Tina