So why is this year's Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest any different?

Perhaps a little background on the contest, for those who don't know. The Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award, or ABNA as most people call it, is held every year by Amazon to find the best and brightest new authors and books in the industry. I entered the contest for the first time in 2011 with my debut novel, The Time Weaver, and didn't make it past the first round.

The pitch round.

That is the source of my anxiety. A 300-word pitch that gets judged by Amazon editors, and only two thousand out of ten thousand entrants will move on to the second round. Why should I be so confident that I will make it? Because for the last four years, I've spent time helping countless writers hone their pitch for this contest. Many of them have made it through.

I haven't.

Three years I've entered ABNA, and three years I've failed to move on. I try to put on a happy face and cheer on my other friends, but there's always a part of me that burns up inside, wondering what I did wrong, or how I could have written a better, stronger pitch, so that it would make it through along with my friends.

Amazon gives us no feedback on the pitch. Either you make it through, or you don't. So I'm left a veritable expert on how to write a great pitch for a story who can't come up with something to get my own book through the first round.

This brings me back to the source of my anxiety.

I've entered The Time Weaver one last time. Fourth time's a charm, right? Thing is, if it doesn't make it through this year, it will likely be the last time I attempt it for The Time Weaver. Because what's the point of beating a dead horse? When the contest comes around again, I'll have The Spell Breaker ready to enter, and maybe have a better chance at coming up with something great to get it through.

In the meantime, ABNA 2014 is under way. My entry is in, my pitch is written, and I've done everything I can in order to get it through this year. All I can do it sit around and wait in an ever-building pool of anxiety for March 18, and then search for my name on the list of those who made it through.

Wish me luck.

I'm guessing very few actually.

So what went wrong?

I'm guessing you lost focus on what was truly important: passion. See, in order to sell somebody a book, they must feel the same kind of passion you had when writing it. Following the rules is important, but we need to feel the story as well.

"Bob and Jane lose a child and struggle to hold their marriage together."

That's a loaded sentence that tells us a lot about the story, but it has no passion. It's factual information with no feeling. I could just as easily tell you that the book is about a man changing a tire, and it would have the same effect. It's flat.

"Bob and Jane lose their new born child to SIDS and must learn to cope together, or spend the rest of their lives apart."

Yeah, it's more words, but it tugs at the heart strings, and instead of telling us what they are trying to do, it implies it, and fills it with passion. There are still facts, but they are woven into the sentence instead of stated. Note "their" rather than "a", the revelation of what took the child, something they "must" do, rather than something they "struggle" to do, and the implication that they will split up, rather than it telling us flat out.

Find the passion you felt when you wrote the book, and pour it into the words you will use to sell your book. If you can't feel passionate about your book, how can you expect other people to feel that way?

Choose your words carefully.

Every word counts when you have only 250 words (or less) to make the sale. This is why I stress to use a character-based pitch rather than a plot-based one. It's very hard to form an emotional connection with a plot, whereas people easily form emotional connections with characters. With the right words you can sell anything, as long as you can achieve that connection with your audience.

Once you have a pitch you are happy with, read it out loud, put it away for a day, and then read it again. Are the verbs the strongest you could possibly use? Have you made use of every word, and cut out any extraneous ones? Is your pitch using an active voice? How many "be" verbs have you used, and do you really need them?

Does it give you chills?

Focus on the conflict

At the core of every book is conflict. Without conflict, we don't have a story. Don't let your pitch get bogged down in details or secondary characters. They are important to the story, but not to the pitch. Instead, narrow down your conflict until you find the heart of your story. What motivates your characters and drives your story forward. Why will people read this book? They certainly aren't reading it to find out what Bob does for a living, or to find out what Jane bought at the grocery store. I'm sure those are very interesting details to some, but that's not what will sell this book.

The conflict is in how Bob and Jane will handle the loss of their child, and how they will find the strength in themselves and each other to move on with their lives. When you boil a story down right to its bones, there must be something there that is driving the plot forward. Find that.

Raise the stakes

If you have nothing to lose, nobody cares about how it ends. That's a universal truth. There is always something to lose, some choice, something that hangs in the balance if the conflict is not resolved in a favorable way. These are your stakes, and this must be believable in order to sell the book.

Bob and Jane stand to lose their marriage, and possibly more when you weigh the emotional cost if they can't find a way to move on together. They may blame each other for the death, or blame themselves. Two people brought together by love, and perhaps torn apart by a tragedy so powerful it can transect even the most powerful bond. They must find a way to move on, or they lose each other, and that's the true tragedy.

You can't sell a book without passion.

If you enjoyed this, you'll probably like the rest of the Perfect Pitching Series.

That's what this is all about today, coming up with that all-important pitch. It's 250 words (or so), how hard can it possibly be? This is the deadly secret of the writing world that nobody wants you to know: writing a sales pitch for a book is the hardest 250 words you will ever write.

I have some guidelines that can make it easier. (Note the terminology: guidelines, not rules. We'll address that later.) If you follow this list, and capture your plot, you'll have a pretty good pitch to start out with.

The "Do"s:

• Keep the word count to 250 words or less. That's not many words to capture the essence of a story that took 50,000 or more to tell.

• Include your main character, the central conflict, and the stakes.

• Use active language.

• Use present tense.

• Write in the same voice as the novel.

• Show us the story (vs. telling it to us).

• Leave the reader with a cliffhanger.

• Be concise.

• Make every word count.

The "Don't"s:

• Try to write the entire story in 250 words.

• Introduce too many characters or proper names in the pitch.

• Start the pitch with a rhetorical question.

• Include self-praise of the work.

• Use adverbs.

• Overuse in-book terminology.

• Give away the ending.

That's a lot of guidelines to follow, which is part of what makes this process so incredibly difficult. Anyone who knows me, knows I've gone through at least four complete rewrites of my pitch, and countless minor revisions.

Anatomy of a Pitch

The basic anatomy of a pitch is three simple paragraphs: character, conflict, and stakes.

Start out by introducing us to your main character, and add in a hook. As a reader, I need something to care about. Don't just tell me that your character Bob is an accountant. That's boring. How bout an accountant who can bend steel bars with his mind? Okay, that got a lot more interesting. Perhaps your book is more down-to-earth, but your character is broken in some way: Bob is an accountant who is clinging to the last dredges of a life he has destroyed through alcoholism. You get the idea. This is where you make the reader care about your character. Why character? I'll explain that later.

Having an interesting character is awesome, but you need plot to go with that. Conflict is what drives the plot. All we want in the second paragraph is the central conflict of the book. How did the character get there? Who else does it involve? Don't get too involved with details, but make sure the reader can understand what the story is about.

A cool character, loads of conflict, and now? We need to know what's at stake. The third paragraph wraps this up and shows the reader what the character stands to lose, or what could happen if the conflict doesn't get resolved in a positive way. The idea here is to build it up to be nice and juicy, and make them beg for more. At this point, the reader should be sold and writing up a request letter or hitting the "buy" or "preview" button. That's how bad they have to need your book.

Breaking All the Rules

What good are rules if you can't break them? Of course, there are only guidelines, and yes, you can venture outside of those guidelines, but understand that the further away from those guidelines you go, the bigger risk you are taking.

What are you risking?

You never get a second chance to make a first impression. The pitch is your first impression. Put your best foot forward. Proof read it, have somebody else proof read it, tighten it, read it out loud, have your best friend read it out loud to you. If they stumble while reading it, so will a potential buyer, agent or editor.

Make. Every. Word. Count.

Character vs. Plot Based Pitching

This is a guideline that I really push people to follow. The reader must connect with your story in some way, and the easiest way to get into somebodies head, is through a character. You can write a plot based pitch, but it becomes much more difficult for a reader to connect to it. If you can make that connection, and get inside their head, you've made the sale.

Never Say Never

The guidelines above can be bent, and even erased if you're careful. But there is one rule I stress to anyone and everyone I help out with a pitch:

Never, ever, ever start a pitch with a rhetorical question.

Never.

It doesn't build suspense. It doesn't hook the reader. All it does is ask the reader a question before they have a reason to care about the answer. Don't put potential readers in this position, because it means they have to work to get to the good stuff, and most people simply won't. Most agents and editors will toss a pitch that starts with a rhetorical question. Most potential readers will pass over it.

Take Frequent Breaks

If you get frustrated, or just can't seem to get it right, stop and take a break. Shelve the pitch for a day or two, a week, or even longer. Come back to it when you have a clear head, and fresh eyes. Have other people look at it and see if they can suggest something. Find a writers group that might be able to help you. This doesn't have to be a solitary effort.

Above all, have fun with it. Whether you write as a hobby, or as a career, you should always try to have fun with what you do. Get yourself excited over this, because the more excited you are, the less like work it will seem.

If you enjoyed this, you'll probably like the rest of the Perfect Pitching Series.