Why Pitch Perfect is a bloody good start for any debut author
With Bloody Scotland crime writing festival taking place this month, winner of the 2023 Pitch Perfect competition, Shane McGinley, writes about his experiences of writing, pitching and tips for this year’s hopefuls.
“Do you know how many times Harry Potter was rejected by publishers?” As a wannabe debut author, I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve been told this. I know the sentiment is always well meaning, but it sometimes makes me want to scream. JK Rowling is nearly a billionaire and Scotland’s 8th richest person, but, when I first started pitching my novel idea, I would have settled for not being ghosted by agents and publishers and getting any kind of feedback.
Then a trip to Scotland last year changed everything. I entered the Pitch Perfect competition at the Bloody Scotland international crime writing festival on a whim. So, when I got the email that I was a finalist, I had second thoughts and left it unanswered for a few days. You see, I hate public speaking, and this was standing up and speaking in front of a room full of people. And I’d never heard of Stirling, so didn’t know it was a few miles from Dunblane, the inspiration for my novel. Oh, and I didn’t mention I live in Dubai, so the trip was very high stakes.
When I won, I was stunned. Suddenly there were drinks and chats with potential agents, a photo shoot, a BBC interview, and industry people I’d been emailing for months suddenly responding within 24 hours. After signing with A.M. Heath, one of the UK’s oldest literary agencies - whose clients have included George Orwell and Hilary Mantel - I focused on working with my brilliant new agent to get the manuscript as perfect as possible (at draft 12 at the last count, with more to go). Discussions with potential publishers are still ongoing, and I do wonder how many times a day is considered too much to refresh your Inbox, but I’ve come to learn that patience is a vital part of the literary process.
It can not be understated how life changing the Bloody Scotland Pitch Perfect experience can be. “I pitched at Bloody Scotland on the Sunday, and by Friday morning had a pre-emptive book deal with Birlinn, one of Scotland's largest independent publishers (with clients including the likes of Alexander McCall Smith),” Natalie Jayne Clark, a 2023 finalist, said of her book ‘The Malt Whisky Murders’ which will be hitting bookshelves in May 2025. Fellow finalist Lucy Andrew also told me last month her novel 'A Very Vexing Murder’ - a cosy crime retelling of Jane Austen’s Emma – has signed a book deal, with details to be revealed soon.
Alison Belsham, the 2016 Pitch Perfect winner, summed her experience by saying “those five minutes changed my life” and she’s not the only one to report such epiphanies.
The 2018 winner, New Zealand-born author DV Bishop has seen his Italian Renaissance-set crime series win a prestigious Crime Writers Association dagger award (the Oscars for crime writers).
Last year, 2020 Pitch Perfect winner Kate Foster saw her debut novel ‘The Maiden’ - a 17th century Edinburgh murder mystery – win the Bloody Scotland Debut Prize.
2019 winner Suzy Aspley will be hoping to repeat that success this month, as her gothic debut ‘Crow Moon’ is in the running this year, having also being short-listed this summer for the inaugural McDermid Debut Award at the popular Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival.
“My favourite mantra is 'this isn't hard, it just takes time',” Clark told me, and as I refresh my Inbox once again, I’m trying to live by it too. After all, Harry Potter was rejected by twelve publishers, you know.
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