My #PBPitch success story almost didn’t happen…
I had marked the June 2019 #PBPitch event on my calendar, and prepped a few tweets for different manuscripts, but I wasn't planning to pitch T. REXES CAN'T TIE THEIR SHOES. I'd pitched it before with no interest, and I thought maybe there just wasn't a market for it.
But, as I was driving my son to school, he needed a Kleenex and there weren't any left in the car. So - and this is incredibly Canadian - I pulled into a Tim Horton's parking lot and while he ran in to grab some napkins, I scrolled through the #PBPitch tweets, saw what was being liked, and decided to throw T. Rexes back into the mix.
The like from editor Frances Gilbert appeared shortly after, and since I'd queried this manuscript before, it took no time to send it off to her with a personalized query letter. I hit send at 10:21 am, and she confirmed receipt at 10:32. When another email from her popped up at 11:55, I assumed it would be a quick, polite rejection.
It wasn't.
It was an immediate offer on the manuscript and I was STUNNED. Then things started to move very quickly. I had full requests out with several agents, so I contacted a few of them and scheduled some calls... but none of them had seen this manuscript. It was the first one I wrote and I'd shelved it after receiving a pile of form rejections from about a dozen agents.
I ended up signing with Moe Ferrara at BookEnds and got right to work on edits with Frances. T. REXES CAN'T TIE THEIR SHOES is being illustrated by Steph Laberis and was published by Doubleday Books for Young Readers/Random House Children’s Books in June of 2021.
For me, this #PBPitch success story was truly a matter of a lot of things aligning at exactly the right moment. If you’re on the fence about taking part in the next #PBPitch, I’d highly encourage you to prep your Twitter pitches and dive in!