How to Craft Your Book Elevator Pitch
Compress your book into 30 seconds that hooks agents, editors, and readers — and makes them ask for more.
Get Free Reviews →The Anatomy of a Strong Logline
A logline has three mandatory components: a protagonist (specific, not generic), a conflict (concrete and active), and stakes (what happens if they fail). “A woman must choose between her family and her career” fails on all three counts: the woman is generic, the conflict is abstract, and the stakes aren't felt. “A surgeon who faked her credentials must operate on the senator investigating her past” is specific, active, and the stakes are life-or-death.
Write ten loglines for your book. The process of generating options forces you to identify what the book is actually about. Pick the one that raises the most questions in the fewest words.
Comp Titles: Choosing the Right Ones
Comp titles (comparative titles) locate your book in the market. They tell agents and editors: here is the shelf where this book lives, here is the readership already waiting for it. Bad comps are books that are too famous (Harry Potter), too old (anything more than five years unless iconic), or too vague (“in the tradition of literary fiction”).
Strong comps are recent, midlist books that sold well without being cultural phenomena. Find them by looking at what authors who share your tone and audience have published in the last three years. Your target agent's recent sales on Publishers Marketplace are a gold mine—comps that match books they've already sold are a strong signal of fit.
Pitching Out Loud: The Conference Pitch
You have 30 seconds before an agent's attention drifts. Start with your logline, delivered without notes. Then the genre and word count in one sentence. Then your comps in one sentence. If there's time, one sentence on your credentials or platform.
Practice the pitch aloud until it feels conversational, not recited. Record yourself and listen back. The moment it sounds like you're reading, start over. Agents at conferences pitch themselves as approachable—they want a conversation, not a monologue. After your logline, pause. Let them ask a question. The best pitches are dialogues.
The Written Pitch in a Query Letter
In a query letter, your pitch is the plot paragraph. It runs about 200 to 250 words for fiction and covers: protagonist introduced in a compelling situation, the disrupting event that creates the central conflict, what your protagonist must do and why it's hard, and the stakes if they fail. It does not summarize every plot point—it presents the central dramatic question.
Write the pitch paragraph as if you're writing jacket copy. Read the backs of books in your genre and notice how they work: a compelling situation, a complication, an unanswered question. Your pitch paragraph should generate the same pull. If a reader finishes your paragraph and doesn't want to know what happens, revise.
The Hook: What You Lead With
Your hook is the first sentence of your pitch, written or spoken. It needs to do two things: create immediate curiosity and signal what kind of book this is. A mystery hook feels different from a literary fiction hook. Genre readers know the difference immediately.
Strong hooks often name an irresistible situation or contradiction. “What would you do if the person who saved your life is also the person who destroyed it?” Not as a rhetorical question (agents dislike those) but as the premise stated directly. “When a grief counselor loses her own child, she becomes the worst case she's ever handled”—that's an irresistible situation. The tension is built in. That's what you're aiming for.
Testing and Refining Your Pitch
Your pitch is a draft until someone who hasn't read your book hears it and responds with genuine curiosity. Test it on readers who are honest, not encouraging. Tell them your pitch and ask: what questions do you have? If they ask about the plot, you've hooked them. If they ask clarifying questions about what the book is, you've lost them.
Share your pitch with other writers at conferences, in workshops, or through platforms like iWrity. Writers who understand the industry will tell you whether your comps are current, whether your logline is specific enough, and whether the stakes feel real. Treat the pitch like a very short first chapter: it needs revision too.
Test Your Pitch Before the Conference
Get honest feedback on your logline, comp titles, and pitch paragraph from readers who understand the market.
Start Free →Frequently Asked Questions
What is the difference between a logline and an elevator pitch?
A logline is a single sentence that captures the core conflict of your book. An elevator pitch is slightly longer — typically 30 to 60 seconds spoken aloud — and usually includes your logline plus comp titles and a brief note on why you're the person to write this book. Think of the logline as the headline and the elevator pitch as the headline plus the most compelling detail. Both need to name a protagonist, establish a conflict, and make the stakes clear.
How specific should my comp titles be?
Very specific, and recent. Comp titles should be published in the last three to five years unless you have an excellent reason to go older. Name the actual book, not the author in general. Comps work best when they're midlist books that performed well rather than massive bestsellers. Choose two comps that between them define your book's tone, pacing, and readership. Comps tell an agent exactly where on the shelf your book lives, which is the whole point of including them.
How do I pitch a book that is hard to categorize?
Pick the primary audience and lead with that. Agents and editors need to know who they're selling to before they can sell it. You can acknowledge the blend — 'a literary thriller with elements of magical realism' — but ground it in a specific genre first. Your comp titles do the heavy lifting here: two books that each represent one side of your blend communicate the hybrid better than any description. Avoid describing your book as 'impossible to categorize' — that reads as an admission that you haven't done the market research.
Should my pitch reveal the ending?
For a verbal pitch to an agent or at a conference, no. Your pitch is marketing — its job is to generate interest, not summarize. Name the conflict and the stakes, but leave the resolution as a question the agent needs to read to answer. For a synopsis, which is a different document some agents request, you do reveal the ending. Know which context you're in. If an agent says 'tell me about your book,' they want the pitch version. Read the room and the submission guidelines carefully.
How do I pitch a nonfiction book versus a novel?
For nonfiction, your pitch centers on the argument or promise of the book and your authority to make it. Instead of protagonist and conflict, you're pitching a problem the book solves, the counterintuitive insight at its center, and why you specifically are credible to write it. For memoir, you're pitching the journey and its universal resonance. For novels, the pitch is character-driven: here's who, here's what they want, here's what's in the way, here's what's at stake.
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Share your logline and pitch with iWrity readers and get the feedback that sharpens it before it matters most.
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