A concise verbal or written description designed to sell your book to agents, editors, or readers by capturing what makes it irresistible.
A pitch is any short-form attempt to sell your book by conveying its core appeal. This can happen in writing (query letters, social media, contest entries) or in person (conferences, meetings with agents). The best pitches communicate your book's genre, protagonist, central conflict, and unique hook in a way that makes someone think 'I need to read that.' Pitching is a skill separate from writing fiction, and it takes practice to compress an 80,000-word novel into something that sparks excitement in under a minute.
At every stage of publishing, someone will ask you what your book is about. Your pitch is the answer. A strong pitch opens doors with agents, gets your manuscript requested at conferences, and eventually becomes the foundation for your book's marketing copy. Learning to pitch also sharpens your understanding of your own story, because it forces you to identify the one thing that makes your book worth reading.
'What if we could clone dinosaurs from preserved DNA, build a theme park, and everything went horribly wrong?' The concept sells itself in one sentence, which is the sign of a perfect pitch.
'An astronaut is stranded alone on Mars and must science his way home.' Six words after 'Mars' and you're already hooked. Clarity and specificity make this pitch unforgettable.
'The story of the witch from the Odyssey, told from her perspective, as she discovers her powers and defies the gods.' Reframing a known story from an overlooked character's point of view is a pitch strategy that reliably works.
Write four versions of your book's pitch: a single sentence (logline), a 30-second verbal version (say it out loud and time yourself), a 150-word written version for a query letter, and a social media post under 280 characters. Compare them. Which one captures the book's appeal best? Which one was hardest to write, and what does that tell you about your story?