To Pitch or Not to Pitch? from James W. Ziskin

 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?

With the exception of my first Ellie Stone book, I’ve always written a short pitch for my editor before starting work on the novel. But the pitch was little more than a formality. Something to show to the publisher to ensure the story wasn’t something awful or inappropriat...