Make Your Elevator Pitch in 3 Sentences
Make your elevator pitch in 3 sentences. Or write a shorter logline.
Mark Mathes
Independent Book Editor & Publisher
President, Sarasota Fiction Writers
Write your pitch in 3 sentences on a card. A logline, even shorter, can reveal the heart of your story in a single sentence. Then, practice wherever you go.
Who is your audience? Who is it for?
What is the emotional reward of your book? The result they get?
Position yourself as a storyteller in one sentence.
What do I want my reader to know? What do I want my reader to wonder?
If you like XXX and XXX, then you might like my book.
If you like Dave Barry and Carl Hiaasen, then you might like my new Florida humor book.
Check your comps. Comparative titles are another indication that a writer understands the market. Your comps should be published within the last three years, ideally, and should not be too well known (no Harry Potter, Stephen King, Jodi Piccoult). Try two titles to set tone and plot.
Your characters in one sentence: the protagonist, the antagonist. What do they want? What is your antagonist’s end goal? Use a piece of your character’s identity to tell us who they are. Relate them to the plot. Madelyn Knecht: Finding your book's hook.
Stakes (what happens if your protagonist fails?)
Examples of stakes: Weak: A woman is sad about her divorce and needs to learn to love again.
Stronger: A woman’s grief has become so consuming that she’s stopped showing up for her teenage son, who’s now acting out in increasingly dangerous ways. Her inability to process her pain is destroying the one relationship she has left—and putting other people at risk. Book editor, agent Renee Fountain.
What’s the inciting incident?
What makes this book impossible to put down?
Where to find your book.
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