Post Pitch Ponder

Enjoying lunch next door at Ironside Restaurant (Denise Aspinall with me).

The windshield wipers swished and clunked all the way there... and all the way home. But despite weather, the long drive and stand-still traffic, our time at Chronicle Books proved a well spent day. We milled around in the reception area, which serves as a bookstore, chatting and meeting others arriving to make their project pitch. I met photographer, Jane Paradise, who hoped to get her photo essay noticed, and a few others. It was a wonderful mix of anxious, creative people eager to pitch their project.

Once we received our time slot, we settled in to practice our pitches. They arranged the room with tables and chairs assigned to areas of publishing at Chronicle books, such as Lifestyle, Art & Design, Stationary and Children. There were one or two editors at each area with a large clock displaying the time. We had ten minutes to pitch and get feedback.

Denise had the first slot and received an "interested" response for her book Dogspirations—a book of inspirational short stories about her two dogs, Sammy and Benji. They asked her for a book proposal—Yay!

Trying to keep the manuscript dry

I went next and got a lukewarm response to The Prisoner of Carrot Castle primarily due to the length of my manuscript (900 words). After licking my wounds, I have regrouped and started working on revising/cutting my manuscript. I'll submit again once I've re-polished it.

E. Marie, me and Stephanie

Stephanie Huang Porter had a good reception of her delightful picture book Dinnertime at My House. The editor reviewing her story suggested some tightening and the addition of page layout marks before sending in for another review. Inspire writer, E. Marie Brierley, showed up to present her picture book, Stinger.

It was a fun day, but also a time that steels the mind of a writer to head back to the keyboard, revise and move-on. What is my top take-away from this experience? It's been whirling around in my head—I want to develop an iPad app of a picture book. Well, I am now focused on making The Prisoner of Carrot Castle into an iPad app. It'll be fun. I have a developer who will do the programming. I just need an illustrator. Do you know of anyone who wants to do the art for an iPad picture book app?