{"id":1815,"date":"2016-08-16T13:08:00","date_gmt":"2016-08-16T20:08:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.comic-con.org\/toucan\/?p=1815"},"modified":"2023-12-20T13:09:37","modified_gmt":"2023-12-20T21:09:37","slug":"devourer-of-words-040-after-the-con","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.comic-con.org\/toucan\/devourer-of-words-040-after-the-con\/","title":{"rendered":"Devourer of Words 040: After the Con"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\n
\n
\n

MARC BERNARDIN’S DEVOURER OF WORDS<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Devourer of Words 040: After the Con<\/h1>\n\n\n
Marc Bernardin<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
\"Toucan<\/figure><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
\n
\n
\"Marc<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

You\u2019ve made contact. Either at a booth, at a party, at the bar, randomly on the convention floor or on the street\u2014you have managed to speak to the editor you\u2019ve been looking for.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You did not, to the best of your recollection, make a fool out of yourself. (Which isn\u2019t necessarily a given.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And now, it\u2019s a few weeks later. What\u2019s your next move?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

DO NOT<\/strong><\/h6>\n\n\n\n

Bombard an editor with a ton of pitches. You are still building a relationship and in the very beginning stages of it, too. Don\u2019t be the overly aggressive first date who wants to move way too fast. Send an email reminding said editor of your meeting, preferably with some detail that can serve as some kind of memory beacon. Remember: this editor has met hundreds of people over the course of the convention\u2014help them pick you out from the masses. Be cordial, be funny, be brief.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n
DO<\/strong><\/h6>\n\n\n\n

Ask if you CAN send a pitch or two. No one wants mail they didn\u2019t ask for\u2014or a bunch of attachments presuming a green light to pitch when a green light wasn\u2019t given. You don\u2019t need to pretend that you\u2019re not trying to get work\u2014you both understand the nature of the intended relationship\u2014but it doesn\u2019t hurt to get the A-OK to fire away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n
DO NOT<\/strong><\/h6>\n\n\n\n

Pick up the phone. Seriously. Unless they ask you to. It\u2019s easy enough these days to figure out how to find any editor\u2019s phone number, especially if they work for one of the major publishers. But a phone call is demanding attention they might not be ready to give you and will almost certainly frost the relationship before it even gets started.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n
DO<\/strong><\/h6>\n\n\n\n

Ask what they\u2019re looking for; anything to help guide you during your pitchery. Because that first volley of ideas is incredibly important\u2014and all too often, it\u2019s a shot in the dark. The more you can shed some light on the proceedings, the better it\u2019ll be. (Conversely, ask what they are absolutely not looking for. It might be an easier question for an editor to answer\u2014\u201cWe\u2019re not after superhero books\u201d\u2014and will still give you valuable information.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n
DO NOT<\/strong><\/h6>\n\n\n\n

Send any pitch longer than a page. With the amount of words your average editor has to read in a day, don\u2019t make your pitches part of the problem. Distill your idea down to its most crackly essence. Yes, you have the first 24 issues broken down page-by-page and you know precisely how it\u2019s going to end in five years\u2014but that is too much information for an editor to parse. And parse quickly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Artists have an advantage in that a good editor can look, very quickly, at a few pinups and three or four pages of sequentials and see if an artist is ready for a shot. Maybe 10 minutes, if not less. You have to make your pitch as close to that as possible. The big idea. The main characters we\u2019re going to follow. The themes. The world. The sentence they\u2019ll want to use to sell it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can get all that on a page. You have to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n
DO<\/strong><\/h6>\n\n\n\n

Send the pitches when you say you will. Ideally, within a day or so of making that second, back-in-the-real-world contact. Don\u2019t give an editor the opportunity to forget about you. Once the window is open, get through it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n
DO NOT<\/strong><\/h6>\n\n\n\n

Harass them the next day. Or even the next week. Give them time. Remember, not only do they have the day job\u2014which is making sure that comics get to the presses on time\u2014but they have the night job of reading pitches from would-be freelancers. And that is not a thing you want to rush. Again\u2014any reason to not have to deal with you, even if your idea is the next Y: The Last Man,<\/em> will be enough to delete your email and close all lines of communication. Harsh, but true.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Be easy. Be patient. Don\u2019t be a problem. Catch flies with honey and all that. Don\u2019t be a pest until you have to be a pest\u2014and that\u2019s two weeks after you send your pitches, if you haven\u2019t heard back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s a line I like from The West Wing.<\/em> It\u2019s during the first season, when President Bartlet\u2019s daughter Zoe is dating Charlie Young, the president\u2019s personal aide. Charlie is being difficult, obstinate even, about secret service complications to the relationship, when someone says, \u201cIf it was me, just for now, I\u2019d make sure I was the one guy in her life that was hassle free.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Marc Bernardin\u2019s Devourer of Words appears the third Tuesday of every month here on <\/em>Toucan!<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

\n

Written by<\/p>\n\n\n

Marc Bernardin<\/div>\n\n\n

Published<\/p>\n\n\n