The Chicken or the Egg?

What comes first, the book or the pitch? Put another way, do you develop the larger idea of a book to test out with your agent/publisher, before writing the book? Or do you write the book and then look for the pitch in it? Or?

Brenda Chapman getting this week started.

Good question.

I'm one of those 'pantsters' who wing the plot on the first go-around. I usually have a crime and motive pinned down, but not much else when I sit down to start a new manuscript. Thus, it would be hard for me to pitch m...