#Pitmad and What I Learned From It

For those of you who, like me, are new to #PitMad let me break down what it is and how it worked out for me.

(Photo credit to Pixabay. Image is on a woman’s hand holding a blue pen as she writes. Notebooks and a coffee cup sit on the table close to her.)

#Pitmad is an event in which writers on Twitter can pitch their books to publishers and agents. It’s a chance to be seen if you’re looking to be traditionally published, which is cool!

It’s hard to be noticed in the literary world, especially on social media. I thought I’d break down what I learned and what I plan on doing going forward.

Worst to Best Pitches.

Image reads: Yours, Mine, Hers — Piper takes a job housesitting in a house that never looks lived in and an owner who never stays to chat. There is one rule Piper must follow — never open the spare bedroom door.

Yours, Mine, Hers didn’t perform as well as I thought it might. Who doesn’t love lesbians? Going by my Twitter analytics, YMH’s was only seen by 44 people and was retweeted once — by me. Those of you who are not new to PiitMad may already have noticed a key mistake. That mistake is going to continue for all the pitches.

The Art of Absolution — Robin and Cole grow up in poverty. Cole becomes successful, thanks to his brother’s sacrifices. Now he must go home, face his past and make amends to the brother who gave up everything to help him.

Seen by over 100 people, tAoA did so well! With the limit of the pitch being the length of a single tweet, I had to really condense the plot. Which meant cutting out the other set of brothers in the story and the romance element. The few times I tried to crowbar in the romance aspect, it sounded like I was writing incest! This pitch, along with getting more eyeballs, gained two retweets and a reply!

The Dusty Sky — Officer Josiah Holloway has faced many challenges as an openly queer black man in the force. He wasn’t expecting the challenge of not falling in love while undercover.

My pride and joy. Don’t get me wrong, I love all my writing babies. TDS however is the one that got me into taking my original writing seriously. It’s been drafted, edited, re-drafted and re-edited more than any other project in this article. I have a box under my bed, in which lies the very first draft of TDS. Josiah has lived in my head for about 2 years now and I am deeply protective of my boy. That being said, this was my second most popular #PitMad tweet, being seen by 155 people and gaining 8 retweets.

Solomon is Missing — Zephan is a spy in trouble. After being publicly outed as a spy in enemy territory, his life is in danger. Grabbing the first person he can, he uses his new hostage as leverage to escape.

Hello, Solomon, who knew you’d be so popular? Somehow, this tweet was seen by 284 people, making it the breakout star (for me) during #PitMad. 284 people saw this tweet. 10 people retweeted it. I know, for the heavy hitters, there are small numbers. They are. They’re huge for me. I don’t use Twitter as much as I probably should as an indie author, so I don’t get a lot of engagement anyway. This is huge. My second most popular tweet of the year was a picture of my cat.

I never, ever, expected Solomon to get so much attention. In the words of Blanche Devereaux, “I am stunned! Simply stunned!”

Lessons Learned

As I hinted at earlier, those who have done this before will have supported the key mistake — I was using the wrong hashtags! PitMad has its own website (pitchwars.org) that lists all of the hashtags that help you get seen by publishers easier!

For example, I could have used for The Dusty Sky #A (Adult), #R (Romance)#POC (author is a person of colour) #LGBT (LGBTQIA+ content) #IRMC (Interracial/Multicultural subject matter) #CON (Contempary) and #T (Thriller)

I could have also maybe used #BVM (Black Voices Matter.) The site states that this hashtag should only be used by black writers. Which is fine, but does that include my half-black self? I never know! (And also, I am always worried that I am walking into a minefield because of my own issues and that is a whole different kettle of fish.)

Going Forward

The next #PitMad event takes place on Twitter on 2nd December (8–8 EST.)I will be joining in and this time, I’m going to be using the right gosh darn hashtags and hope for more engagement!

The biggest takeaway for me is that there is an audience out there for my stories. Which is a gigantic confidence boost. There is an audience out there for me, so now I have to prove myself worthy of them.