How I Celebrate My Fellow Authors on PitMad Day

It’s become my tradition to post to Twitter early in the day on PitMad day asking for those who are pitching their novels to agents to send me a reply so I know who’s participating and can retweet their pitches.

I’ve been doing this for several PitMad events, and I’ve learned a lot about how to get the most out of the event. You can read my tips for participants and observers here, but this will be my space to speak about how I celebrate the day and why, and to talk about what I’ve learned along the way.

First thing’s first, NEVER use the PitMad hashtag on a tweet that isn’t a pitch! The official account will scold you! So, if you’re wishing people good luck, or doing like I do and asking who would like your support via a retweet, don’t use the hashtag!

I also learned the hard way that GIFs in the reply thread cause significant delays. When Twitter is trying to load hundreds of replies, GIFs will cause a lot of lag. This time around, I made sure to ask participants to please refrain from putting GIFs in the reply thread and to just drop me a text comment. There was much less lag, and a side benefit was that I had a few nice conversations in between retweeting pitches!

One things I’ve noticed in the past is that people who follow me have gotten frustrated with me spamming the timeline with retweeted pitches on PitMad day and have unfollowed me. So this time around, I posted a high volume warning tweet ahead of time to ask people to mute me if they didn’t want to see hundreds of retweeted pitches.

The other important thing I’ve learned is that it’s a good idea to use Twitter’s new features to limit those who can reply to people I already follow. The volume of responses I get means I basically have to clear my calendar for the day so I have time to retweet all of the requests. It takes a considerable investment of time just to do the retweets alone, but I also take an extra step of adding a comment under each pitch I’ve retweeted. (More on that later.)

During past events I have received over 250 comments and spent over 4 hours retweeting and commenting. I didn’t get a chance to retweet each pitch before the event was over, so I’ll try to give myself more time in future.

Why Does It Take So Long?

So, let’s talk about why it takes me all day to get through a simple retweet requests thread.

I don’t curate what I retweet. I’m not reading through and only retweeting the pitches that I think sound like something I’d like to read. I retweet everything indiscriminately (with only one exception…apparently, I draw the line at Nazi love interests).

But don’t get the wrong idea. I wouldn’t characterize what I do as blindly retweeting. That would take hardly any time at all.

My favorite thing to do during PitMad is to read each pitch I come across and comment with something that I like about each one. That’s the thing that takes so much time. It’s wholly unnecessary, strictly speaking, but it makes me feel good. Every author has put a ton of hard work and so much time into their manuscript. I’ve never finished an entire manuscript, myself, and I have so much admiration for those who’ve accomplished writing an entire novel. I feel like the least I can do is to pick out something I like about their pitch.

It’s just my little way of making sure that every pitch I cross paths with receive a little bit of love from someone who cares, so that even if their pitch doesn’t get a nibble from an agent, they have something they can look back on that will make them smile.

And it’s all really worth it when a tweet I’ve shown some love to gets a nibble, like this one:

Getting the most out of PitMad

Today was #PitMad on Twitter! Here are my top tips on how to get the most our of PitMad if you’re participating in pitching your novel or even just observing the chaos.

WHAT’S PITMAD?

For the uninitiated, PitMad is an event on Twitter where authors tweet out their 280-character “elevator pitch” for their completed novels using the #PitMad hashtag and agents like tweets to request that the author send them a query letter with a more detailed synopsis of the work. It’s a way for agents to find authors and stories they’d be interested in representing and a way for authors to match with agents. That’s the short version, there are rules to follow, and you can read up on all of the details here.

HOW TO GET THE MOST OUT OF PITMAD

This not being my first rodeo, I’ve compile a few tips to help you pitchers get the most out of your Pitch Wars Experience:

PIN YOUR PITCH TWEET
It’s such a huge help to everyone who visits your timeline to see what you’re pitching if your pitch is your pinned tweet.

CHANGE YOUR HANDLE FOR THE DAY
Change your display name to something like “Lacy is Pitching TITLE” for the day. This will let people know to visit your timeline if they are seeing you interacting elsewhere but haven’t seen your pitch tweet yet.

USE ALL THE HASHTAGS
If the only hashtag in your pitch is #PitMad, you’re not taking full advantage of the opportunity to connect with agents who specialize in your genre. Check the full list of hashtags here. The #BVM - Black Voices Matter - tag debuted today to lift up black authors during this time of policing reform protests, so be sure to check the list often, as it evolves over time.

PITMAD AFTERCARE

My favorite time of the PitMad day is after 8pm when the official pitch period is over. Here are some things you can do to follow up on your Pitch Wars Day.

SCOPE WHAT YOUR FAVORITE AGENTS ARE LIKING
When the frenzy dies down, I pull up my Twitter List of agents I want to eventually query and scope what pitches they liked. It's a great way to refine my list of potential agents and learn more about their interests. To see what a specific agent has liked, go to their profile. Under their bio are a few tabs labeled Tweets | Tweets & Replies | Media | Likes. That last one is the one you want. It’ll show you everything that agent has liked recently. (Every tweet a user likes is publicly viewable, if you weren’t aware. And yes, I’ve unfollowed people before because I’ve seen them like a tweet that was reprehensible.)

WHO IS LIKING PITCHES SIMILAR TO YOUR WIP?
Similarly, if I run across a pitch that shares aspects with my WIP, I make sure to bookmark them and check back to see if any agents have dropped a like on the tweet. It’s an excellent way to find more agents who would potentially be interested in the types of stories I write, and if you don’t already have a list of agents who you want to query when your manuscript is completed, PitMad is an ideal day to start one!

SEARCH THE TAGS THAT FIT YOUR WIP
Search the genre tags that apply to your WIP (i.e. “#PitMad #A #LF #MH” for adult literary fiction that deals with mental health issues) and check out which tweets are getting the most likes. You can use these pitches as references for how to craft your own pitch when the time comes, or just scan through the likes to see which agents are actively seeking new work to represent in your genre. Consider querying them through their usual guidelines.

Did you miss out on pitching during this round?
Yeah, I did too, despite my best intentions to complete my manuscript.
But, not to worry, we can all set our sites to the next PitMad day:
September 3, 2020!