The Basics

The contest will happen on Twitter under a common hashtag (#SFFpit). During a 10-hour window on the chosen day, authors with completed manuscripts who are seeking representation or publication can tweet a pitch for their books (at most, once per hour).

Agents and editors will make requests by marking pitches as a favorite on Twitter. If your tweet is favorited, please follow the agent or editor’s submission guidelines. Throughout the day, we will have authors, agents, editors, and other folks stopping by on the hashtag to say hello. To make sure you know what’s happening, please sign up for my mailing list or follow me on Twitter.

For Agents and Editors

Thank you for your interest in #SFFpit! All literary agents and acquiring editors of science fiction / fantasy are welcome to participate. Here’s a quick cheat-sheet for how to participate:

Read pitches by searching for #SFFpit on Twitter. You can also include age category or genre hashtags in your search to narrow it down. To exclude a hashtag, put a minus (-) in front of it. So “#SFFpit #A #SF” would return adult sci-fi pitches, and “#SFFpit #FA -#MG” would return non-MG fantasy pitches.

by searching for #SFFpit on Twitter. You can also include age category or genre hashtags in your search to narrow it down. To a hashtag, put a minus (-) in front of it. So “#SFFpit #A #SF” would return adult sci-fi pitches, and “#SFFpit #FA -#MG” would return non-MG fantasy pitches. Be sure to click the “Latest” tab if you’re searching on Twitter, to see all tweets in real-time instead of “top” tweets. A Twitter client like HootSuite or Tweetdeck is recommended.

if you’re searching on Twitter, to see all tweets in real-time instead of “top” tweets. A Twitter client like HootSuite or Tweetdeck is recommended. Please tweet your submission guidelines on the #SFFpit hashtag when you arrive, so authors know how to respond to your request.

when you arrive, so authors know how to respond to your request. Make requests by hitting the Like button (A.K.A. favorite) on pitches where you’d like to see a query/partial.

Please feel free to make requests after the event ends, or even the next day. Authors love getting late requests. Thank you for participating!

Newest Pitch Rules: Retweeting is Back! Last year, in response to agent feedback, we made some changes to the guidelines for this contest, like a shorter window and discouraging retweets by participants. That seemed to hurt the contest, so we’re going to compromise. These guidelines are current for 2020 event: Shorter window. #SFFpit will run for 10 hours, from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Eastern time.

#SFFpit will run for 10 hours, from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Eastern time. Pitch limit. Participating authors get one tweet per hour , or 10 pitches total , per project. Use them wisely.

Participating authors get , or Use them wisely. Retweeting is back! A year ago, we asked that you not retweet fellow authors’ pitches, because it made the feed a little crazy. However, it had other negative effects, most notably a drop-off in engagement and participation. So please feel free to retweet pitches to support your fellow authors. Just don’t go crazy. Please use Retweet-with-quote (Quote Tweet) to add a comment or word of encouragement if possible, to give your show of support a unique flare.

A year ago, we asked that you not retweet fellow authors’ pitches, because it made the feed a little crazy. However, it had other negative effects, most notably a drop-off in engagement and participation. So please feel free to retweet pitches to support your fellow authors. Just don’t go crazy. to add a comment or word of encouragement if possible, to give your show of support a unique flare. Tweet length. Twitter has recently expanded the maximum length of tweets for most of its users. Since I don’t own the platform, I obviously can’t control whether or not authors choose to take advantage of this. If you want to go longer, be my guest.

Please follow these guidelines to keep this event fair to everyone involved!

When to Pitch

This event happens twice per year. The actual dates are chosen based on agent availability, and announced a weeks in advance. On pitch day, we usually go from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Eastern. That’s a shorter window than usual, for the following reason.

Participants get 10 tweets total for the event. That’s one tweet per hour. This is a new rule, and designed to help reduce the flood of pitches for agents and editors.

What to Pitch

This contest is for completed, unpublished novels of fantasy or science fiction. Complete means that it’s proofed, polished, and ready for submission. Unpublished means you haven’t self-published it online, on Amazon, or in print. Fantasy or science fiction means speculative fiction: epic fantasy, urban fantasy, post-apocalyptic, space opera.

Genre mashups, such as sci-fi romance, are welcome, as long as you’re not just trying to pass off your non-SFF book as something that it’s not. The agents and editors we’ve invited are primarily interested in fantasy and/or science fiction.

How to Pitch

Your pitch should contain four elements:

First and foremost, the hashtag for the contest, #SFFpit. An indication of the book’s age category. If you don’t provide it, we’ll assume adult. An indication of the books’s genre in existing terms. See below for hashtags. A pitch for your book. Ideally, it should tell us character, desire, obstacle(s), and stakes.

You should tweet your pitch no more than 10 times throughout the day. Make sure each tweet is slightly different, as tweeting identical text is a violation of Twitter’s guidelines.

Hashtags for Age Category

Please use these hashtags to indicate the target age group for your book:

#PB – Picture book

#MG – Middle grade

#YA – Young adult

#NA – New adult

#A – Adult

Hashtags for Genre/Subgenre

Please use a hashtag to indicate the genre of your book. Because everything’s going to be fantasy or science fiction, I’d like to allow some subgenre tags as well:

#FA – fantasy

#CF – contemporary fantasy

#DF – dark fantasy

#EF – epic or high fantasy

#FR – fantasy romance

#HF – historical fantasy

#LF – literary fantasy

#AH – alternate history

#MYF – mythic fantasy

#SNS – sword & sorcery

#PN – paranormal

#UF – urban fantasy

#MR – magical realism

#SFY – science fantasy

#SF – science fiction

#AF – apocalypse fiction

#CliFi – climate / climate change fiction

#LSF – literary science fiction

#ML – military science fiction

#PA – post-apocalyptic SF

#SFR – sci-fi romance

#SFT – sci-fi thriller

#SH – superhero / superhuman

#SO – space opera

#DS – dystopian

#SP – steampunk

#TT – time travel

#WW – weird west

Feel free to use two genre tags, as long as they’re compatible (e.g. #FA #DF), but there’s no pressing need to have more than one. For a description and some examples of these subgenres, see the SF/F Subcategories post by Connor Goldsmith of Fuse Literary. Please let me know — by e-mail or Twitter — if I haven’t specified your subgenre!

Other Hashtags

We have followed #PitMad’s lead in detailing additional hashtags that authors may wish to use:

#BVM = Black Voices Matter (to be used by black creators)

= Black Voices Matter (to be used by black creators) #POC = Author is a Person of Color

= Author is a Person of Color #OWN = Own Voices

= Own Voices #IMM = Immigrant

= Immigrant #LGBT = LGBTQIA+ subject matter

= LGBTQIA+ subject matter #IRMC = Interracial/Multicultural subject matter

= Interracial/Multicultural subject matter #MH = Mental Health subject matter

= Mental Health subject matter #DIS = Disability subject matter

= Disability subject matter #ND = Neurodiverse subject matter

Pitching Guidelines

Here are some general guidelines to ensure fairness and respect during the contest.

Please DO:

Pitch completed, unpublished novels that represent your best work.

that represent your best work. Include the contest hashtag , #SFFpit.

, #SFFpit. Use appropriate hashtags for age category and genre/subgenre.

for age category and genre/subgenre. Pitch your book at least once an hour to give everyone a chance to see it.

give everyone a chance to see it. Make sure that your tweets are not identical. Twitter will block multiple instances of the same tweet, to be sure to move the hashtags around or change a character each time.

Twitter will block multiple instances of the same tweet, to be sure to move the hashtags around or change a character each time. Follow submission guidelines . Scroll up in an agent or editor’s tweets to see what they are, and be sure to follow them.

. Scroll up in an agent or editor’s tweets to see what they are, and be sure to follow them. Research before submitting. We have no control over who shows up to make requests. Twitter pitching events often attract new, inexperienced agents and publishers. Before you submit materials to anyone, do some digging on places like the Absolute Write forums and SFWA’s Writer Beware. Check agent/agency sales on Publisher’s Marketplace. Do your frickin’ homework, please!

Please DON’T:

Pitch more than the limit . This ensures that no one spams the hashtag, and gives everyone a fair shake.

. This ensures that no one spams the hashtag, and gives everyone a fair shake. Pitch directly to agents or editors . In other words, don’t use @ at the beginning of your pitch.

. In other words, don’t use @ at the beginning of your pitch. Use weird formatting or images to get attention. No ALL CAPS or multiple lines. These are annoying.

No ALL CAPS or multiple lines. These are annoying. Use the hashtag to self-promote. This is not the place to hock your e-book, editorial services, etc.

This is not the place to hock your e-book, editorial services, etc. Like/favorite other pitches, unless you’re an agent or editor. There’s nothing more disappointing than getting notification that your tweet was favorited, only to find out it was just another author.

Pitching Tips & Advice

I am not an expert on Twitter pitching, but I can pass along some good advice from past contests:

The best pitches tell us about the character, desire, obstacles, and the stakes.

Start working on your pitches ahead of time. Get some feedback.

Try at least a few different wordings or versions of your pitch during the contest. We like variety!

Specific consequences or stakes (“Or his little brother will be executed”) are better than vague ones (“Or things will never be the same”).

Show off your writing ability. Saving a few characters with “texting” abbreviations (gr8, 4ever, 2 instead of “to”) is probably a bad idea.

I’d also recommend you check out these places for Twitter pitching advice:

Want to Say Thanks?

I do this to give back to the author community, so no thanks are necessary. Still, I wouldn’t mind if you decided to check out the book based on my blog series that was published by Writers Digest. Putting the Science in Fiction contains 59 chapters — plus a foreword by NYT bestselling author Chuck Wendig — written by a range of experts with one goal: to help you write more realistic and compelling stories.

What to Expect from #SFFpit

Unfortunately, I can’t promise much to the authors, agents, and editors who participate in #SFFpit. I can tell you that it’ll be fun, and that participating might help authors improve their craft and query. Nevertheless, Twitter pitching contests are not a secret entrance to literary representation. In my guest post on #PitMad numbers for Brenda Drake, I estimated that the odds of success (having your pitch favorited by an agent or editor) were around 6%.

Pitching contests do work. So if you’re looking for representation or publication, please join us… you have nothing to lose, except for a few hours on Twitter. Let’s be honest, you were probably going to be on Twitter anyway.

Past #SFFpit Events

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