Okay, so I said last month that I was going to do a series of tweets talking about my experience as an an agent with #PitchWars. Today seems a good day for that (read: I remembered early enough in the day) 1/

And I freely admit that thoughts of Coronavirus have increasingly taken over & I feel fairly divorced from what I was thinking/feeling at the height of my #PitchWars work. But I shall endeavor! 2/

So last year, I had a pretty great #PitchWars experience. It was my first year participating and I requested very widely. I was totally impressed with the quality of the entries & made a point of writing specific comments on each request 3/

I can’t recall how many entries I requested. I know I didn’t receive everything I asked for (totally fair) and I was SHOCKED by how many offers came in on the requests & how quick it happened. I foolishly cleared time for the days of the event, not realizing...4/

...that with offers coming in on material within hours, everything had an insta-deadline for reading and I could do little else for 2 weeks. It disrupted my scheduled vacation & I had to work through it. 5/

Ultimately, though I was somewhat blindsided by the timing, it was a successful experience. I offered on 4 mss & signed 2 of those authors. That felt great. A worthwhile result for all the work I put in on the final analysis 6/

So that is how I went into this year’s #PitchWars event. I absolutely knew what I was committing to in terms of time. I cleared the decks & I was ready and excited. As it happened this year, I was 3 months out from maternity leave & was looking forward to... 7/

...finding some fantastic work to pitch before my leave. The best thing about #PitchWars entries are how often they are pretty clean & close to pitch-ready. I was reasonably expecting a similar result as I had last year. That is not what happened :/ 8/

So for the stats: I requested 31 mss and I received them all. As with last year, notifications about offers started coming in within 24 hrs (also during my vacation). I had notifications about roughly 7 pending agent offers within 3 days. Most authors asked for answers in 2wks 9/

Since I had cleared the decks, I was able to get right on the reading. Within the week, I’d been notified about offers on about 12 #PitchWars requests. Coincidentally, I had offer notifications on 4 mss outside of #PitchWars at the same time. Then more notifications came 10/

At the height of the rush, I had notifications on 21 offers, all with responses requested within about the same 5 day period. So I was reading around the clock. But that’s what I signed up for & expected. 11/

So while all of this was happening, I was falling in love with mss myself. Like, HARD. In this big rush with the #PitchWars reading panic, I offered on 5 projects. Let me tell you how that works emotionally for the agent (okay, me, anyway) 12/

In some cases I was the 1st or one of the 1st agents to offer on the ms. I would have a fantastic conversation with the author, disclose—of course—that I was pregnant, discuss timing, talk about edits & pitch strategy & then prepare to wait with hope in my heart 13/

In OTHER cases, I was one of the last agents to offer before the expiration of the deadline. When you go in knowing you were the 11th agent to offer on a ms, you manage your hopes accordingly. The odds are not in anyone’s favor in that situation. You make your best case &... 14/

Hope for the best. So of my 5 offers, with some I threw my hat in the ring b/c I LOVED the ms but once I knew the volume of offers, didn’t expect an acceptance. And w/others, I really felt I had connected w/ the author in a special way & wrapped my entire heart around the MS 15/

It’s hard to not plan for the future with those manuscripts. You’ve already mentally edited it & planned a pitch list, figured out how you will sell it. You are ALL IN. 16/

Folks, I signed ZERO of the 5 mss I offered on thus far in #PitchWars. And some of those passes were absolutely crushing. I cried. I felt like my heart had been stomped into a million pieces (okay, I’m pregnant). 17/

And when I started doing the analysis about whether participation in #PitchWars was worth it, I’m not going to lie, I felt pretty sour about how this season had gone for me (it’s still ongoing) 18/

And then a global pandemic hit & perspective felt a lot more within my grasp. But as far as the time commitment goes... just reviewing the #PitchWars categories prob took me 6 hours. Since I AM pregnant, I planned for this to be one of my biggest (possibly only) event this yr 19/

I came loaded for bear. I ran headlong at this event planning to be as aggressive with my requests as possible. So 6 hours to rev the entries, then with each full I read, that was probably another 6 hours per. Anything I offered on I spent extra time planning possible edits 20/

Anything I offered on, meant a 1-2 hour call w/the author. It is all told a massive amount of time committed for what has been to date, a complete bust. I can’t get that investment of time back & it netted me zip. It’s hard to do that analysis & think let’s do this again! 21/

As of this moment, of the 31 mss I requested from #PitchWars, 19 have received offers at this point. I offered on five, 12 I passed on & 2 I’m deciding on still. 12 are still needing to be reviewed. The event is still happening. I rec’d another offer notification yesterday. 22/

So I don’t really have an answer about whether I will participate next year. The time I spent on the event to date to not net a single new client is...sobering. If you would have asked me after I got a heartbreaking rejection the answer would have been NO! 23/

Today, I have more perspective. (This is not life & death.) And I have 14 mss yet to review. There is time yet for magic. And you can’t win if you don’t play. But of course I have to do the cost-benefit analysis as a business person & that will be factored into any decision. 24/

The jury is still out about next year. I still hurt for the mss I lost. I am wary about making more offers in a huge field & getting crushed again. I still feel competitive & want to sell more mss before my leave 25/

So that’s the scoop from me and all my #PitchWars thoughts. It’s definitely up and down depending on how things go week by week. 26/