On Tuesday, February 24th, 12 pitch-ers presented the 2-minute versions of their ideas before an outstanding panel including: branding guru extraordinaire Mitch Baranowski founder of BBMG; Barnes & Noble Review editor Nick Curley; Susan Golomb, lit agent for the likes of Jonathan Franzen Ideasmyth client Gabrielle Selz; and Foundry Literature + Media agent Anthony Mattero who reps Talib Kweli and Malim Bialik. Here are some highlights:
“I think the answer lies in identifying who’s in the audience. Who is going to find that touching and funny? And where do they live? Where do they work? What do they eat? What do they read? Really getting into the nitty-gritty of it – that’s marketing.” – Mitch Baranowski
“You’re really confident in your delivery and that’s going to go far for you.” – Victoria C. Rowan
“The question that really drove home was: why do you want to develop this story?” – Nick Curley
“You need something to hook you in in the beginning – something you’re going to jump for” – Anthony Mattero
“…the big thing that’s really important when you’re doing a memoir is asking: what’s the life arc here? This horrible thing happened, but the reason you have the right to take up 20 hours of somebody’s time to read your book is because you have some hero’s journey to share with the reader. What’s on the other side of that journey?” – Victoria C. Rowan
“When I hear this, I feel like I want to see this – as a TV show or a documentary, so again, why is this a book? How can you make this really work as a book? It has to be in your literary voice.” – Susan Golomb
