{"id":1066,"date":"2024-09-28T05:53:27","date_gmt":"2024-09-28T04:53:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/timothypatrickbrown.com\/?p=1066"},"modified":"2024-09-28T05:53:29","modified_gmt":"2024-09-28T04:53:29","slug":"pitching-meditation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timothypatrickbrown.com\/index.php\/2024\/09\/28\/pitching-meditation\/","title":{"rendered":"Pitching Meditation"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The results are in after pitching \u2018Somewhere In Between<\/a>\u2019 to three publishers at the Romance Writers of Australia conference<\/a> in Adelaide this year. I was rejected three times, but I take that as a positive experience. I stepped up, got some feedback, and now feel like a real writer. And I get to call myself an \u2018emerging writer\u2019 rather than an \u2018aspiring\u2019 one – my book exists and has been read by a real editor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here\u2019s how the pitches went:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Harlequin Australia<\/h1>\n\n\n\n

The pitch went well but Harlequin weren\u2019t interested. They aren\u2019t currently taking romcoms which aren\u2019t set in Australia. Mine is set in the UK then ends in Australia – and I\u2019m not sure if it is a romcom, but I pitched it that way regardless.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Penguin Random House<\/h1>\n\n\n\n

Pitch went well again, and the editor said she wasn\u2019t making a decision on the day, and she would email later. I found her email in my junk folder about three weeks later – I was surprised she emailed back at all even though it was a rejection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And I got a bit more feedback. She felt that the story wasn\u2019t high stakes enough, which is always going to be a problem with a book set in a meditation class<\/a>. Also, one of my comp titles was Leonard and Hungry Paul<\/a> which is a gentle story about gentle souls and probably put her off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pantera Press<\/h1>\n\n\n\n

My most successful pitch. The editor asked for the first three chapters which I duly sent a week later. Another rejection but I was delighted to get a paragraph of feedback from a professional editor. Super useful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the positive side – my style of writing was described as ‘charming, entertaining and very readable’. High praise indeed. On the negative side – the story was slow paced, and felt long, and being set in the same meditation class didn\u2019t help the pacing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Next Steps<\/h1>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m due to finish my ninth draft edits shortly. I was thinking the edits were coming to a close – but the slow pacing of the book remains an issue (and one that was flagged up months ago by the first wave of beta readers). So I\u2019ll continue with the edits, and focus on trimming on the slow parts, and loosing up the structure so it doesn\u2019t rigidly follow the (glacial) progress of a typical meditation class.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Photo by Jon Champaigne<\/a> on Unsplash<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The results are in after pitching \u2018Somewhere In Between\u2019 to three publishers at the Romance Writers of Australia conference in Adelaide this year. I was rejected three times, but I take that as a positive experience. I stepped up, got some feedback, and now feel like a real writer. And I get to call myself […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1068,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1066","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-diary-of-a-first-novel","entry","has-media"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/timothypatrickbrown.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/pitching-scaled.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timothypatrickbrown.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1066","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timothypatrickbrown.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timothypatrickbrown.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timothypatrickbrown.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timothypatrickbrown.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1066"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/timothypatrickbrown.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1066\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1069,"href":"https:\/\/timothypatrickbrown.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1066\/revisions\/1069"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timothypatrickbrown.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1068"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timothypatrickbrown.com\/index.php\/wp-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