The Elevator Pitch (for Novels!) | How to Pitch a Book

Elevator pitches aren't just for high concept stories! If your novel is quiet and literary, or big and sprawling, or truly unlike any other novel you can think of - you can still come up with a great elevator pitch! Try these two exercises to come up with fun, unique ways to pitch your novel in just a few words.

Stuff I use as a full time writer/author (that you may have spotted in this video!) (affliate links are afoot):

WRITING/WORK STUFF

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VIDEO MAKING STUFF
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Plus I've got lots of other freebies for you to download and use on your writing journey, including:

From Premise to Plot: A Guide to Plotting
My FIRST First Draft Checklist
My Revision Game Plan
The Query Formula

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[MichelleSchustermanAuthor]

Go on, give me the best elevator pitch you've got in the comments!

[elizabethmarlowe]

This is one of the most helpful videos I have seen on the subject and I have seen so many and read so many books.Thank you!

[georgelogreco]

Thanks for this much needed advice. I instinctively used the comp a long time now of "Pilgrims Progress meets the Matrix"

[ameliarolf]

Thank you! This (especially the second half in my case) sounds super helpful! I’ll have to give some of those methods a try. Thanks again!

[SDHuston]

Here's my (awful & just written using your formula) pitch for my novel, Soul of a Rose, a YA fantasy based on Irish mythologies:

Rose had learned never to trust anyone after being kidnapped by a mean leprechaun, but when that leprechaun turned into Lugh, the Sun God, who professed his love before being killed in an attack on her home, Rose regrets his death. Now she must travel through Tech Duinn, the Otherworld realm of the dead, to save his soul without losing her own.

[reginaduke]

Wow, this is a great how-to!!! If I were still aiming for trad pub, I would definitely use this information!!! So great! I wish I'd heard this back in the 90s and 00s when I still dreamed of book contracts. :D You are one of the best writing instructors I've ever found (and I was tutored by a script and storytelling media specialist at conferences for ten years). Meanwhile, I have 10K more words to edit (out of 100K) so I can send my vampire sequel to the editor. :D Sending you warm and distanced hugs.

[SDHuston]

Very informative video! I really appreciate you breaking down all the parts of the pitch and giving real examples of how to critically look at one's own work.

[heathermacdonald]

Another useful video, Michelle. Thanks, so much! Love the query pitch! Simple and effective. Have a good writing day!. :)

[ravensthatflywiththenightm]

Revisiting this on Lovecraft's birthday because an agent announced that she's accepting queries till August 31 and I need to remember how I did my pitches before. 📘

[LauraWrites]

This is an excellent video! I really struggle with the pitch so I’m super excited to use these tips!

[writenowdream]

Hmmm..Time to go read more in the genre I want to publish in!

[evelynkrull]

This is the first of your videos I'm watching. I'm days out from finishing the my first novel (a rewrite from a horrible version I wrote in high school) and I have spent so much time off and on with this novel (the first of a series) and I have absolutely no idea what to do once it's finished. It's a fantasy/sci-fi fantasy realism.

While I definitely have an antagonist, I feel the main issue is my main charater's memory loss and I've had a hard time trying to describe the novel because of this.

[kanashiiookami]

So do you do an elevator pitch to sum up the series or the first novel? Because in the grand scheme of things, the backbone to most of my series is family, friendship, and loss. But they are also sci-fi/fantasy and (in a few cases) supernatural, with action or battles (depending on the book) so mentioning the core theme could throw someone for a loop when they read the actual book. And goodness, boiling down my series to an elevator pitch makes it sound less exciting (or lovable, or "new") than it is. 😂

Considering elevator pitches are likely great for back cover blurbs, I really gotta figure this out and get it done right. 😅

[peregrinearc]

Would throwing a draft into an elevator count as a good "pitch"? 😉

[peggymcfarland]

I am finding that agents want newer comps--withing the last five years, preferably three years. Though I love your examples in this video, do you have any suggestions on how to find newer comps?

[lindsayribar]

The best pitch I ever saw, from back in my agenting days: "Free Willy meets How To Train Your Dragon in dystopian feudal Japan, with a Rage Against the Machine soundtrack."

[johnparnham]

Hi Michelle. This is a big problem for me because my Achilles heel has always been summarising anything.I simply don't know how to put it into a few sentences. So this video is for me.

[JoeyPaulOnline]

I think my favourite pitch of mine is not with comps. Welcome to the Lights Out world where aging stops at 25 and all life ends at 60.

[DiabloDisablo]

I found this video very helpful, thank you. However, SPEED is not DIE HARD on a bus. It infuriates me when I hear this. Yes, they both have captives. But in Die Hard it's many terrorists vs one hero. Speed is the exact opposite - one terrorist vs all law enforcement, but focussed on Jack. They are not the same. <rant over>😁