How To Write a Hit Pitch

In Four Easy (Not Easy) Steps

May 20, 2025

Hey Y’all,

I read a book last week—a NYT best seller, by an established author—and I didn’t love it. I read the whole thing and I wanted to know the ending but I can’t say I enjoyed it. I was, however, very interested in A: why this book made me so mad and B: why I think other people didn’t feel that way. No, I’m not going to tell you what book it was, because I don’t want to shit on this author, who I’m sure is doing fine, regardless of what I think. But it’s lead me to theorize what I think you can use to write your own HIT BOOK.

ok ok I’m going to spoil it for you right up front that my theory isn’t really going to give you a foolproof recipe for writing a hit book, but I DO think it will help you think about how to hone your own pitches and stories to zero in on what might make it a hit, or more hooky, or help create buzz about it. This all boils down to how to tell readers what they’re going to get out of reading your book.

The book I read was a mystery/thriller, and long time readers know I famously do not read or represent mysteries or thrillers. I do, however, have a soft spot for books about writers/writing/publishing, and this one was about that. And it basically trafficked in all the worst cliches about writers, writing programs, and wannabe writers. I think this author did so knowingly, on purpose, with a wink to anyone who knew how exaggerated it was. If you weren’t in the know about publishing and writing programs, you felt like you were getting the inside look at the industry, kinda like how Grey’s Anatomy is an inside look at being a hospital doctor. (As in real but not really.) This is all fine. This probably does not and did not bother anyone but me. I’m not even here to defend publishing and writing programs—sometimes we’re really that bad!!!—I just know it well, so it wasn’t as titillating. What I liked most about the book was that the characters were really well drawn. I mean, I disliked them as people, but they were really well-drawn dislikable people. I stuck around for the whole book to see just how bad they were going to be, and honestly, that’s not nothing.

There was a twist in the story, and even though I could see it coming a mile away (this is why I don’t read mysteries; I both don’t want to be right or wrong about a twist), thinking and talking about this book has helped me home in on a couple things that help make a good pitch for a book. And a good pitch can go a long way in helping people read your book, all the way from agents to editors to retailers to readers. You have to have the goods to back up the pitch, including good writing, a satisfying ending, and the mechanics to get the reader from the pitch to the last page, but if you’ve got that and a good pitch, you might be unstoppable.

Something to Root For

In the above book, I was rooting for the main character’s downfall, and I think the author intended that, at least in part. I don’t usually want to root for something like that but in this case, it worked fine. Your reader has to want something to happen to your characters, and then feel like it’s worth it to stick around and see if it happens.

Change

I like it when I read a pitch and I see “but then…,” as in Betty was all set for Astronaut School, but then her shuttle was hijacked by rogue terraformers. (I can think of some more artful ways to say this, of course. Don’t @ me.) All your astronaut transports do not need to be hijacked by rogue terraformers, but something should happen in your story. Something, or preferably someone, needs to change. I know there are people who would fight me on this, and I bet you can name books where something doesn’t change (yes, yes, I read My Year of Rest and Relaxation too, and I loved it). If you need to write the hit novel where nothing changes to soothe your artistic soul, I will not stop you. But I don’t think the same ploy will work for your second novel.

Something Unexpected

Here’s the magic sauce. Here’s the thing I’m going to say you need, and it’s going to be vague and amorphous and inexact. You need something in your book that makes the reader go oh. Could it be a twist like in the book I read today? Yes (though I personally think a book that hinges heavily on a twist not being spoiled doesn’t last long on the shelf). Could it be a quirky thing, like Remarkably Bright Creatures, which is about befriending an octopus? Yes. Could it be like Margo’s Got Money Troubles which features professional wrestling? Yes. Does it have to be “quirky?” No. In fact, it should not be “quirky” (derogatory) in a self-conscious, obvious, let-me-show-you-how-quirky-I-can-be way. The minute you cross that line, you’ll lose the reader. How do you keep unexpected things from tipping over into “quirk?”

Vulnerability

The antidote to quirk is vulnerability. I can make a character unicycle all over a story, but the second I win you over about why he’s unicycling, it goes from quirk to caring. You identify with why he’s unicycling more than being dazzled (or annoyed) by unicycling and it puts the focus on the character, not the unicycle. You can replace unicycle with whatever you yourself care about and it’s the same thing, and thus it takes the pressure off the unicycling to carry all the emotional weight of the story. A unicycle cannot carry the emotional weight of a story. That’s why quirk for quirk’s sake falls flat.

There you have it. Just do those four things and you’ll be set. Lol, no. But looking at your story through these lenses can really help.

I’m toying with the book I want to write next. I have a couple thousand words written and it all plotted out. But the pitch isn’t right yet, and I think that’s going to impact the plot. I’m going to take my own advice here and see if I can’t adjust things to highlight that Something Unexpected with more Vulnerability. I’ll let you know if it works.

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