I Got Ratioed by 300 Writers... - by Jeffrey Jeakins
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I Got Ratioed by 300 Writers...<br>Learn to talk about your book BEFORE the opportunity arrives.
Jeffrey Jeakins<br>May 20, 2026
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Stock photo licensed via Envato Elements
I was in an online workshop a few months back, hosted by two top literary agents alongside 300+ other aspiring authors, all of us hoping to learn how to pitch our novels.<br>Five people would be selected to deliver a verbal pitch of their book and somehow I was selected to be one of the five pitchers. This was it. A real chance to pitch my novel to actual agents.<br>But truth be told, I hadn’t put any thought into really pitching my book yet. My head had been down writing for the last year and I had not spent any real time formulating my pitch. I assumed the pitch would come naturally once I started talking.<br>Big mistake.
After my name was called, I began my pitch, voice quavering slightly after realizing it was show time.<br>“My book is a high-concept speculative thriller called The Mandala.<br>The story begins with the mysterious death of a young Chinese math student studying in Toronto. Investigators discover a notebook filled with strange geometric symbols, and one of those symbols triggers a cascade of bizarre events that draws the attention of Chinese, Indian, and Western intelligence agencies…”<br>“Okay, hold on Jeffrey, I’m going to stop you there.”
The agent turned to the audience.<br>“Does anyone understand what this story is about?”
The chat answered immediately.<br>“No.”<br>“Not really.”<br>“I’m confused.”<br>“Kind of… but not really.”
A lot of people chimed in, and I got absolutely ratioed by the chat.<br>I hadn’t even made it to my protagonist yet…<br>After getting abruptly cut off, I was soon peppered with the follow-up questions. What made it speculative? What was the core hook? What are the emotional stakes?<br>I answered… adequately. But I certainly didn’t crush it. A few minutes later they moved on to the next writer, and I sat there realizing I’d just fumbled the ball.<br>But I learned some EXTREMELY important lessons. My pitch was not ready, and more than that, I was not ready.<br>Writing the book is only half the job.<br>The second half is learning how to COMMUNICATE the book. Under any restrictions of time or place (Whether it’s a one sentence or a 5 minute pitch). I knew immediately that the failure wasn’t the agents’ fault.<br>The problem was that I understood the book intimately, but I had never practiced guiding someone else into it. I pledged to never be unprepared again!<br>Cue the Eye of the Tiger training montage.<br>I started studying public speaking.. Lots of TED Talks mostly, focusing on all the different methods to communicate complex ideas in a way that the audience is going to connect with.<br>I read a few books too, Talk Like TED by Carmine Gallo and Set Your Voice Free by Roger Love. Both were excellent, and had a lot of great tips. I recommend the audio book version of Set your Voice Free as the author reads it himself.<br>I started building out what I now call my Pitch Bible.<br>Any topic I could think of, I wrote down. Two sentence pitch, major themes, short synopsis, genre, market positioning, comparable titles, story structure, cosmological framework etc etc. I wrote down every question I thought someone might ask me and then I practiced answering them. Out loud.<br>As writers, we often spend a lot of time in our own heads and not always taking the time to practice verbalizing and articulating those thoughts out loud and in real time.<br>Over and over again I practiced responding to questions and learning to articulate myself as clearly as I could until the repetition made me feel more comfortable t
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Audio playback is not supported on your browser. Please upgrade.o a point where I could ad-lib and freestyle with confidence.<br>Maybe this article is silly to you because you’re one of those people that is naturally eloquent, but for me, I believe this was a massively effective use of my time, and important enough to share with everyone. When the time comes, and you have the chance, do yourself a favour, get comfortable talking about your book before the moment arrives.<br>If this is of interest to anyone I’ll share the Pitch Bible I’ve come up with in a future post.<br>Thanks for listening,<br>Jeffrey
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Discussion about this post<br>CommentsRestacks
Elizabeth Browne
1m
I'd love to read/hear your pitch bible, Jeffrey. I recall an agent or publisher on Substack telling an anecdote about someone who submitted a book, and the person on the other end asked what genre it was. The author couldn’t answer. Yes, we've gotta know what we wrote!
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Eric N. Lard - Author<br>11m
Wow, being put on the spot like that is tough. Especially when you’re talking about something you poured your heart and soul into. Sounds like you responded well. Just wondering, after putting so much effort into the pitch, did it change the way you saw the story? For me, it always does. I try to do my pitch work...