Ask Not What The Reader Can Do For Your Book

You Know Where I'm Going With This

Hi friends,

I’ve found myself talking and thinking about a book’s pitch or hook lately, whether that’s a novel or a non-fiction book, for kids or adults. I know I’ve said “consider the reader” and “don’t forget the reader” many times over the years and I’m sure you’ve heard it elsewhere, too. But have you thought about where the pitch and the reader intersect?

First, let’s briefly review what a pitch is. It’s how you talk about your book. It’s how you—enticingly—tell people what your book is about or what happens in it. Sometimes it’s one of those movie-style pitches like “my book is The English Patient meets Ghostbusters!” And that’s enough. Some books are hard to pitch and they still work. Some books are easy to pitch but don’t deliver on that promise.

I’d say most writers think about the pitch in terms of talking to agents and editors and query letters, and yeah that’s the first place you’re going to use it. This is fine. Your pitch also embodies what you set out to do in your book, your point, your purpose, your story, and that’s great, too.

But your pitch isn’t only a thing you do to get an agent’s attention among hundreds of other query letters. It’s what you say directly to a reader. How would a stranger react if you pitched your book to them on the street. Would they say “And? So?” or “Holy shit, then what happened?” Or “OMG tell me more!”¹

Ergo, the way to get attention for a book is to create an exciting plot or audacious claim, right? And all other things are doomed to obscurity? I hope not. I could just give you that advice and wipe my hands of the topic and talk about word counts again. But it I worry this creates only one kind of book. That it makes publishing bland and boring.

It might do that. The fix for this is not for you or me or Publishing to guilt people into buying the quieter books because they should, like reminding people to floss or drinking enough water. It’s to highlight the tangible things those quieter books give readers, and if there are no tangible things, well, then one must examine the book, not the reader.

An exquisitely written, quiet novel that feels like many others or an impeccably researched non-fiction book about a mundane topic with little new info is still going to have a hard time in the marketplace, even if they’re good. Even if they’re great. Because, well, do you want to read them? Of it wasn’t by your friend or just happened to be set in your hometown or about the thing you minored in in college, would you rush to the store to get a book a review said was very good, but none of the other details stuck? Or would you pick up that book your friend couldn’t stop talking about over brunch last weekend? Some might pick up the quiet book because that’s what they want, which is why some quiet books still work and sell modestly. But the other kind of book sells more and we all know why. Because it’s easy to talk about.

So what do you do with this info? Go back into your story, your thesis, and say “who cares?” at every turn. Not to beat yourself up but to stress test your ideas. If no one cares, can you push it farther to find something to care about? Can your characters lose more, and bigger? Can you take bigger swings? Can you search for more answers? Ask bigger questions? Why not?

This conversation exists at the intersection of art and capitalism. You can pursue art outside of capitalism but then you can’t get mad if capitalism doesn’t like your art. If you want art + capitalism, you have to look at who will be exchanging their money for your art. What are you giving them in return? Readers want to trade time and/or money for books because they think they will get something out of the reading experience, either the bliss of art or increased knowledge or personal enlightenment or 🌶️ 🌶️ 🌶️ 🌶️ or laughs or their own experiences reflected back to them. We all read for many different reasons, big and small. Your hook or pitch distills those reasons and lets the reader decide if they want to invest. If you can’t pitch your idea well…… you might not get a lot of investors.

It’s the difference between going to your friend’s improv show because you love and want to support them and going because the show is a musical improv performance for fictitious songs from an updated version of Newsies set in the future. If that’s your jam, you’re going to tell your other friends about it, even before you see it. And if you see it and love it, you’re going to tell even more friends. But you aren’t going to tell anyone you’re going to see your friend’s regular old improv show, except to complain that your friends are still doing improv shows in their forties.²

I know I’m circling several concepts here, and I’m still thinking about them. I’ll let you know what I continue to come up with. But I think pitches come down to this—to butcher a historical reference—ask not what the reader can do for your book, but what your book can do for the reader.

OXOXOXOXOXOXO,

Kate

1. This is where platform is useful. The people you know are much more receptive to your ideas than strangers.

2. Apologies to my improv-loving friends. I’d still go to your shows regardless.