The Book Doctors are proud to announce 2013 National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) winner Stacy McAnulty got a 3-book deal from Random House for The Dino Files, in which a nine-year-old dino expert has adventures at the Dinosaur Education Center of Wyoming, run by his paleontologist grandparents.

The 2015 Book Doctors NaNoWriMo Pitchapalooza is accepting pitches from now until March 6. Just send your pitch to: nanowrimo@thebookdoctors.com. PLEASE DO NOT ATTACH YOUR PITCH, JUST EMBED IT IN THE EMAIL. All pitches must be received by 11:59PM PST on March 6, 2015. The 25 random pitches will be posted on March 15, 2015. Winners will be announced on March 31, 2015. Anyone can vote for fan favorite, so get your social media engine running as soon as the pitches go up!

Like last year, we’re offering free 20-minute consultations (worth $100) to anyone who buys a copy of The Essential Guide To Getting Your Book Published. Just attach a copy of your sales receipt to your email and we’ll set up your consultation.

It’s been a great year for Pitchapalooza winners. Cathy Camper and Raul Gonzalez III were our Pitchapalooza winners from world-famous Powell’s bookstore in Portland, Oregon. Their middle grade graphic novel, Lowriders in Space, is the first in a two-book deal with Chronicle Books. Cari Noga was the NaNoWriMo Pitchapalooza winner in 2011. Her novel, Sparrow Migrations, was a semifinalist in the 2011 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest, the spring 2013 winner of the ForeWord Firsts contest sponsored by ForeWord Reviews, and was named a literary fiction category semi-finalist in the Kindle Book Review’s 2014 Kindle Book Awards. She recently received an offer from Lake Union Publishing, an imprint of Amazon Publishing. Then there’s Pitchapalooza winner and NaNoWriMo veteran, Gennifer Albin. After she won Pitchapalooza, one of New York’s top agents sold her dystopian novel in a three-book, six-figure deal. Her third book, Unraveled, just came out this past fall. And these are just a very few of our many success stories!

Are you feeling a little unsure about exactly how to craft your pitch? We’ve got 10 Tips for Pitching:

1. A great pitch is like a poem.  Every word counts.
   2. Make us fall in love with your hero.  Whether you’re writing a novel or memoir, you have to make us root for your flawed but lovable hero.
   3. Make us hate your villain.  Show us someone unique and dastardly whom we can’t wait to hiss at.
   4. Just because your kids love to hear your story at bedtime doesn’t mean you’re automatically qualified to get a publishing deal. So make sure not to include this information in your pitch.
   5. If you have any particular expertise that relates to your novel, tell us. Establishing your credentials will help us trust you.
   6. Your pitch is your audition to show us what a brilliant writer you are, it has to be the very best of your writing.
   7.Don’t make your pitch a book report.  Make it sing and soar and amaze.
   8. A pitch is like a movie trailer.  You start with an incredibly exciting/funny/sexy/romantic/etc. close-up with intense specificity, then you pull back to show the big picture and tell us the themes and broad strokes that build to a climax.
   9. Leave us with a cliffhanger.  The ideal reaction to a pitch is, “Oh my God, what happens next?”
   10. Show us what’s unique, exciting, valuable, awesome, unexpected, about your project, and why it’s comfortable, familiar and proven.