PPWC 2016 - Collecting Nos and Fighting Bitterness

By: Aaron Michael Ritchey

This year at the Pikes Peak Writers Conference I had a wonderful time. The keynotes were awesome, as always, and I became best friends with Rachel Caine and Jeff Lindsay. Both bought copies of my books, however, thanks to a few of my biggest advocates. I am very grateful for such advocates.

I also loved teaching classes and bonding with so many good, strong, courageous writers.

However, when it came to pitching agents and editors, I just wasn’t feeling it.

Normally, I’m a Go-For-The-No type of guy. Which means I collect nos. One isn’t good enough. I used to go to conferences, pitch one person, get a yes, and then walk away feeling victorious.

Then I read a book called Go for No by Richard Fenton and Andrea Waltz. Getting a yes is fine, but really, this game is about collecting nos. Kevin J. Anderson knows all about this. Remember, he won the award for most rejections.

I go to conferences not looking for yeses, but looking for nos. I would pitch every single agent and editor to collect the most nos. I’m also trying to do this when I submit short stories or when I query agents. I’m looking to collect nos.

So what happened this year?

I wasn’t feeling it. Partly, it’s because I have the six books of The Juniper Wars to write for WordFire Press. That’s a whole lotta fiction right there. Four of the six are written and are in various stages of edits, including finished (the first one, DANDELION IRON, is already out in the world and burning brightly).

I’m also working on a trilogy of romance novels with Andrea K. Stein which we are going to publishing independently. So I have eight books to write and polish. Dang, when you put it that way…just…dang.

I have a full plate, yet I do have some projects I want to shop since it takes traditional publishing YEARS to do anything. Once I complete The Juniper Wars and my romance trilogy, I’ll need the next thing. If I start now, in two to three years, I might have the next thing ready.

But I have to admit, all of that is true, but I’m also getting bitter. It's been ten years of querying and going agentless.

However, there’s another reason I was reticent to pitch. I’m questioning the role agents have in my career. The biggest thing an agent can do for me is to get me into the big traditional publishing game. Ideally, I’d sell a book and Scholastic would pick it up and put me in their catalog, which goes out to MILLIONS of readers. Dude, I’d pay an agent fifteen percent to get that kind of action. You betcha. Still, those are some long odds and so many things can go wrong. And I only want an agent that adores me. Finding one of those has been challenging. 

Hence the bitterness, which I will not embrace.

If all an agent will do for me is to sell my stuff to a small or medium-size press? No, thank you, I can do that myself. *Tips hat and walks away*

Pitching to editors can be iffy since they are so busy. They might love my idea, but then it gets buried under their stack and they forget about me.

In the end, I’m surrendering to the will of the universe. Remember, Rachel Caine showed up at a writers’ conference, talked to an editor, wasn’t very gung-ho about it all, and wound up with her first publishing contract. More and more, I’m seeing this whole publishing game as one that is going to happen to me if I keep writing and putting myself out there.

For example, at Pikes Peak this year, I kept bumping into this one agent. I did my homework, read about the agents who represent middle grade, and made a list. I met this person in an elevator, got ready to pitch, but then the irony of doing an elevator pitch in an elevator completely silenced me. This person hurried away. I kept seeing her/him, kept trying to pitch to her/him, but it wasn’t happening. I let go. I surrendered. Wasn’t meant to be.

Then the two people I really wanted to pitch were standing by the elevator again, and this time, I walked up and pitched them both – an agent and an editor.

They were both tired and they both looked upon me with a certain amount of amusement. Or scorn. I couldn’t tell. The agent was interested and I’ll send her/him pages. The editor wasn’t.

Then the agent said that the way the industry works is that writers send queries to agents who send them to editors.

You all would’ve been proud of me. I nodded politely. I didn’t say that if I could pitch the editor directly, the agent wouldn’t get his/her fifteen percent. I also answered politely that, no, this wasn’t my first novel. And, yes, I’ve seen some action, won some awards, and did the Amazon bestseller thing.

Am I getting jaded? Yeah, definitely.

I still believe in collecting nos, but more and more, I want my nos to come from readers themselves, not the publishing industry.

Funny thing about that…most readers say yes to me. Go figure. And those readers become my advocates.

And I love advocates. They help me sell books. Which brings us back to paragraph one.

Ahh, the circle of life.

Will I be at the Pikes Peak Writers Conference in 2017? You bet your butt I'll be there. To collect nos and to fight the bitterness.

About the Author:  Aaron Michael Ritchey is the author of four young adult novels and his short fiction has appeared in various anthologies and online magazines. He is also a dynamic speaker, having taught classes on all aspects of writing fiction around the country. In 2012, his first novel, The Never Prayer, was a finalist in the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers Gold Conference. In 2015, his second novel, Long Live the Suicide King, won the Building the Dream award for best YA novel, and he spent the summer as the Artist in Residence at the Anythink Library. Dandelion Iron, the first book in his epic YA sci-fi western series, The Juniper Wars, is available through Kevin J. Anderson’s WordFire Press. Aaron lives in Colorado with his cactus flower of a wife and two stormy daughters.

Go For The No!

 By Aaron Michael Ritchey


I have a friend and struggling novelist, Giles Hash, who is a rising star in the Colorado writing community. He has started up a Podcast, Beyond the Trope; he has an active blog (http://gilesth.blogspot.com), and he is busy querying agents and editors with the latest book he’s been slaving over with the help of his critique group full of brilliant young guns packing wicked heat and looking for a fight.

We texted back and forth one night. He was feeling down because he was getting hammered with rejections, like an underdog boxer against the HEAVY WEIGHT CHAMPION OF THE WORLD! A left, a right, body blow, body blow, he’s up against the ropes, right cross, uppercut, body blow.

Rocky III drama ensues.

Slow-mo yelling. Spittle. An impossibly huge fist hits him and his facial features blur with the force of the publishing industry’s fist.

“Get out of there!” 

I’m texting Rocky III dialogue to him. I’ve been there. I know.

Courtesy of Chris, clker.com

But here’s the secret. It’s not the victories that are important in life. It’s not the yeses. It’s the nos.

Our job as authors is to collect as many nos as we can at every stage.

AT EVERY STAGE, COLLECTING NOS IS CRITICAL!

I wrote that in all caps. I yelled that to everyone in the ring, to everyone in the audience, to everyone.  Published, unpublished, afraid to write, everyone.

The secret to success is not in the yeses, it’s in the nos.

There is a fabulous book called GO FOR NO! by Richard Fenton and Andrea Waltz. It’s about sales.  Like it or not, as writers, we have to be sales people. A little hint, and many of you will wince, or laugh, or ignore me, but if you want to improve your sales skills, find someone who has a network marketing business, and ask them to attend a sales training. Most likely it will be free, or at least cheap, and you’ll make your friend very happy. And you will learn some sales techniques. If you don’t know anyone who has a direct sales business, contact me and I can hook you up.

But back to NO. GO FOR NO! Instead of telling you what the book is about, I’ll show you how I used its ideas.

Courtesy of Yasser, clker.com

I practiced going for nos at a Pikes Peak Writers conference not too long ago. Normally, I went to a conference, pitched to one or two agents, and then if I got a yes, I stopped. I queried the agent. A yes is good, right?

Yes. Yeses are good. Nos are better.

So at the 2011 Pikes Peak Writers conference, my goal was to collect nos. I wasn’t interested in yeses. I wanted to tally up the nos. I pitched to every agent and editor there, and I got some nos, but I mostly got yeses. Which increased my odds 500%. 

But I didn’t focus on getting yeses. I focused on getting nos.

Another example: I reached out to a famous author, and I asked for a blurb. I knew she didn’t give blurbs, but I wasn’t going to her for a yes, I was going to her for a no. And I explained I was looking for a no.

This famous author said no, but then she said yes. I’m going to appear on her blog, where she helps struggling authors trying to break out into the mainstream. I went for the no, I got the yes.

Courtesy of Ahaney, clker.com

With my books out in the world, a good way to get exposure is to get reviewed by book reviewers and book bloggers. But it’s a tough market out there, saturated, and it’s as hard to get a good book reviewer’s attention as it is an agent’s. So yeah, I’m querying book reviewers, and most don’t respond, but some do, and some say yes, but others say no. 

If I stop when I get a yes, I’m cheating myself, because the victory isn’t in the yeses, it’s in the nos.

Go for the no!

Count every no as a victory. Give yourself an ice cream for every no. Run ten miles for every yes.

This is a business of nos. At every stage. 

If you train yourself to go for the no, you will be able to celebrate daily.

Don’t go for the yeses, go for the nos.

Courtesy of Agnes, clker.com

And if you get a yes?

Celebrate, celebrate, celebrate.

Then get back to writing and collecting nos.

About the Author: Aaron Michael Ritchey grew up as a garbage can for stories including way too much Robert E. Howard, Edgar Rice Burroughs, and Stephen King. His debut novel, The Never Prayer, was published by Crescent Moon Press in 2012. More recently, he has two new stories in the second and third issue of a new magazine, Fictionvale. Aaron’s next novel is a happy, little suicide book for young adults and anyone just this side of hopeless. Long Live the Suicide King is available now! Aaron lives in Colorado with his moviestar wife and two rockstar daughters.

Seven Things About Pitching You Won’t Hear From Me Live

By Linda Rohrbough

I’ve come up with a pitching workshop that’s also now an iPhone app. It’s a three step formula that works for any book. Want to hear more? I’ll let you in on my secrets when I teach it live in my Thursday Prequel workshop on April 22nd at this year’s PPW Conference, "Pitch Perfect: 3 Steps to Getting Their Attention." But in the meantime, let me tell you seven things I’m sure I won’t have time to say that Thursday morning.

1.      Most writers stop improving their pitch at the point where they sell the book. They do this because they figure if the pitch sold the book, it’s good enough. I agree. However, there are basic ways to make a pitch work and it can always be improved.

2.      Most new writers feel they have to be all things so some editor or agent will pay attention to them. That’s simply not true, and it’s the quickest way to produce failure.

3.      Every writer, no matter how much experience he or she has, has some level of fear when pitching. What’s important is to understand the concept that you can use fear to your advantage, and learn how to make fear work for you instead of against you.

4.      I failed miserably the first couple times I tried to pitch my fiction work. I failed pitching my non-fiction work, too, but the fiction failures were worse because I thought I had enough experience writing professionally to be heard. This is why I did the work to come up with my formula, which I use for my own work.

5.      This is a false statement: “You just need a one-sentence pitch.” I’d like to find whoever started that rumor and straighten them out. Although it’s so widespread now, I’m not sure it’s possible to trace the source.

6.      Most successful writers learned how to pitch by trial and error with years of practice. Yes, you can learn the same way. But do you really want to? Wouldn’t you rather shortcut that process?

7.      I get this question a day or two into a conference from new writers who take my workshop: “Do agents and editors always say yes?” They look at me with suspicion because they have heard pitching is hard. But these fresh writers, who have never pitched before and are using my formula, think pitching is too easy. So there must be a catch, like all agents and editors say yes at conferences and this is a scam arranged to make them feel better about paying extra for this workshop. So those of you with experience, can you tell us, do all agents and editors say yes at conferences? Ask around to the professional writers who learned to pitch by trial and error. Find out how long and how many tries it took them to get a yes.

One thing you will hear me say in my workshop is that pitching is a lifelong skill for a writer. Since writing is a lifelong profession, that makes sense.

I’m smiling as I write this because I’m looking forward to teaching this workshop. It’s one of my favorites and fresh for me every time I teach it. (I’ll be teaching other workshops during the course of the conference, as well.) Plus, I’m looking forward to being back home in Colorado. For those of you who don’t know, I’m a third generation Colorado native transplanted to Raleigh, North Carolina, but always looking for an excuse to come home.

Here’s the link for the Thursday Prequel workshops. Hope to see you there!

About the Author: Linda Rohrbough has been writing since 1989, and has more than 5,000 articles and seven books to her credit along with national awards for her fiction and non-fiction. New York Times #1 bestselling author Debbie Macomber said about Linda’s new novel: "This is fast-paced, thrilling, edge-of-the-seat reading. The Prophetess One: At Risk had me flipping the pages and holding my breath." The Prophetess One: At Risk has garnered three national awards: the 2012 International Book Award, the 2011 Global eBook Award, and the 2011 Millennium Star Publishing Award. An iPhone App of her popular “Pitch Your Book” workshop is available in the Apple iTunes store. Visit her website: www.LindaRohrbough.com.