There’s a quarterly event on Twitter called PitMad, where hopeful writers such as myself can throw their book pitches out into the void in the hopes of catching a like. Basically, some agents and sometimes publishers will look through the feed, and if you’re lucky enough they might come across yours in the sea of pitches. If they then hit LIKE, it’s an invitation to query them.

I entered the December PitMad on a whim.

I’ll be honest. I was not prepared.

It was my first ever PitMad, and I’m excited to say that I ended up with three likes: 2 agents and 1 publisher.

I’m hoping to query one of those. Unfortunately, I’m flailing because, as mentioned above, I am not prepared. I’m trying to quickly throw together a query letter and synopsis. I have old ones from when I first wrote the book, years ago, but couldn’t find the synopsis and the query letter was pretty terrible. I find both of these things incredibly difficult to write… So I may not be able to in time. But if nothing else, I’m excited that someone liked my pitches. And maybe kicking myself a little for entering PitMad before being fully ready. I should have made sure I had a query and synopsis and THEN entered PitMad.

Hindsight is 20/20.

I wrote three different pitches for PitMad:

After finding a devilishly handsome marquess sleeping in her bed, Angelique Grafton is torn between fulfilling her late parents’ wish for an arranged marriage, and her own desire.

Angel has:
– An intended fiancé
– An evil cousin who hates her
– A brother who can’t explain the birds and the bees without fleeing
And a handsome marquess in her bed, who is NOT the intended fiancé.

Painfully shy debutante Angel is already resigned to an arranged marriage when she finds a devilishly handsome marquess sleeping in her bed. She has to choose between fulfilling her late parents’ wish, or her own.

The top one had two agent likes, and the middle one had a publisher like it. Sadly, the publisher’s submission guidelines don’t match my story. (Their word count limit would mean I’d have to remove 1/3 of the story, which is a lot.) The third one didn’t get any likes, but was also sent out towards the end of the 12-hour window when things seem to have slowed down a lot.

Has anyone else ever tried PitMad or anything similar?