Crafting the One-Sheet.

One sheet designed by Martin Graphics


A writer's one-sheet is a marketing tool for pitching your book to editors and agents at conferences. One-sheets are generally printed on white paper. Color is judiciously used for emphasis. Be careful because using too much color or too many type fonts are marks of an amateur. A desktop publishing program like Macintosh Pages or Microsoft Publisher will give you a professional look. A great touch is to add photos reflecting the book's setting, prominent symbols or theme.

Your one-sheet should include:

Title. Place the book's title at the top of the page in bold letters. Put the author's name directly under the title.

A Tagline. Or hook. Also, called an elevator pitch. In 25- (precise, witty, catchy) words or less, tell what your novel is about.

Brief Synopsis. Look at back cover copy for examples. Susan May Warren calls this The Big Bang. When constructing the big bang, think of these questions: What's at stake for the characters? What's the climax? What's the Black Moment? What's the spiritual takeaway?

Contact Information.Author's name, address, phone number, email address, blog, and website.

A Current Author Photo. This will help the agent or editor remember you and your project.

Author Bio. This is a brief resume of your published works or experience pertinent to your platform. You may be a school teacher writing about bull riding. If you grew up on a ranch, that experience should be included.

Other. Genre. Word count. Status of work. Is it complete or a work-in-progress? Series or stand alone? Agent, if you have one. Target audience.

~Roxanne Sherwood

A Perfect Pitch

Summertime.
Baseball players of all ages are winding up to practice their pitches. Time for writers to practice yours too.

Even if you're writing the first draft of your novel, people will ask, "What's your book about?"

If you say, "Forgiveness," or mention any other theme, they'll still ask, "Yeah, but what's it about?"

If you hem and haw and sputter over you're words, you'll lose their interest.

If it takes a couple of paragraphs to describe all the intricate details of your plot, you'll get the same reaction as the previous example.

If you're passionate about your work--and face it, you'd better be passionate about it to spend about a jillion hours writing the darn thing--you need the skill of being able to pitch your story in a quick sentence or two.


The elevator pitch.
Say you're a writer who steps into an elevator and sees your dream editor standing inside. The editor is your captive audience for at least the time it takes to travel one floor. You've only got 15-30 seconds to convince him to buy your book. What are you going to say?

James Scott Bell gives a quick and easy pitch formula to get started:
A adjective adjective noun (describing the main character) does blank and blank (verbs).

A suicidal family man struggles to escape his failures and discovers what life would be like if he'd never been born.

A good pitch does three things:
1) Tells the genre.
2) Describes the basic premise.
3) Hooks the listener into wanting to know more.

He's a pacifist. She's a black belt. They disagree on everything except saving the lives of the kids in their neighborhood.

For examples of good pitches, read the back cover copy of books, scour the TV Guide and check movie listings.

To see examples of how not to pitch and why they don't work, hop over to the Rachelle Gardner's blog Rants & Ramblings On Life as a Literary Agent.

http://cba-ramblings.blogspot.com/search/label/Pitching

~ Roxanne Sherwood