Pitchapalooza

I had so much fun and learned so much at Pitchapalooza at the Clinton Book Shop on Thursday night. Well these two authors (Arielle Eckstut and David Henry Sterry) are pitching their new book about how to get published (The Essential Guide to Getting Your Book Published). Arielle is an agent-at-large from a fairly large literary agency ( http://www.levinegreenberg.com/arielle-eckstut/ ) and together she and David have a business called The Book Doctors.



For this book tour the local book store recruits two local authors and the four of them do an American Idol style (without Simon) workshop where the audience gets one minute to pitch their book and the panel critiques the pitch and then decides who gets a free hour at a later date with Arielle and David to hone their pitch or just to pick their brains.


I was going to pay my $25 (which includes a copy of their book) to pitch them In Season, but when I called Rob (who runs the Clinton Book Shop) was desperate and he asked me to be one of the locals on the panel. It was fun! Arielle and David were kind but realistic with the presented pitches. Two standouts. One had a really good pitch for a book and the other was a book for which I wish the pitch had been better.  Since this was a pitch contest the good pitch won. I also sold a copy of my book and gave a copy to David and to an independent book store owner who was there with her husband to pitch books.


All in all a night of networking and fun.