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Always be ready to talk to
someone in the elevator.
It’s all the rage to talk about your “elevator speech.”
That’s where you have thirty seconds to pitch your book,
as if riding to the tenth fl oor with Steven Spielberg.
Or sitting across from an agent at a conference where
you get to “speed date” for possible representation.
So just what is a good elevator speech?
You’ve already done it. It’s the opening paragraph of your
query letter.
Don’t reinvent the wheel. That’s not good ROE.
Just go over and over your query paragraph. When
you give your elevator speech, deliver it with warmth and
natural passion (don’t hyperventilate). Don’t stress about
having it memorized word for word. You’ll know enough
of it to make it just fi ne.
Summarize your elevator pitch with a logline. That’s
a one-sentence summary that has as much ka-ching in it
as possible. You can do this in two ways:
1. The “what if” line:
What if a best-selling novelist becomes the
incapacitated prisoner of his “number one
fan”?
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2. The “what happens” line:
A middle-class gardener is given three days
to come up with two million dollars to
save his kidnapped wife.
Now you’ve got a logline and an elevator pitch in
your back pocket. If someone asks you for a brief on your
novel as you walk to the elevator (or anywhere else), you
give the logline. If the person wants to know more, you
give him the elevator speech.
Have a logline and an elevator speech for your cur-
rent novel and also your novel in progress.
Don’t have a novel in progress?
Start one.
When I fi nish a novel, I ship the manuscript off
to my editor, and while he’s reading it, I begin
a new one. I write half a dozen chapters and a
brief synopsis—just enough to get my publishers
hooked—then, as soon as I get the first check,
I throw away the synopsis and let the book
lead where it will. (My publishers have never
complained about this.)
—Stuart Woods
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