Last Thursday, my local Indie, Porter Square Books , hosted The Book Doctors and the touring PItchapalooza. The gist of a Pitchapalooza is you get one minute to pitch your book to The Book Doctors and then they will give  you feedback. Awesome, right? You also have to buy their book, The Essential Guide to Getting Your Book Published for a chance to pitch,* and you weren’t guaranteed actual pitch time, but regardless you did walk away with a free 20-minute phone consultation with them. While not everyone will have a chance to attend one of these, I thought it would be helpful to share some of the tips I heard on crafting your pitch. Take your time crafting it. It took The Book Doctors six months to craft their one-minute pitch for their book. At the end of the pitch, there should be a feeling of “what happens next.” Comp titles. If it’s not clear where on the shelves your book belongs, you have to include some comps, but you don’t need to pull just from other books in your g...

Every Wednesday, YA Highway asks their readership a simple question to answer on your blog. Once you answer, you link your blog in the comments for other readers to hop on board. This is Road Trip Wednesday. Today's topic : You're re-reading one of your favs when someone asks the dreaded question: "What's that book about?" Give us your best off-the-cuff blurb of any book, any genre, and have your readers try to guess the title in the comments! Oh, how I hate love a good guessing game, but I do plan on rereading it this summer, so bonus. However, we know I have issues saying what a book is about. The Weekend of Awesome girls saw this firsthand when I struggled with my elevator pitch for Phoenix Rising. Holly witnessed it when after I gave said pitch and she asked a question. My answer was "uhhhh..." In short, I never do the book justice. Oh, boo-hoo. Stop stalling. Okay, okay! In order to protect one, three 14-year...