I recently pitched to a literary agent at a writing conference for the first time. I’m going to talk a little about what I learned from that experience, but first I want to share something about my experience with pitches in general.

I work for myself, which means I have the joy of going to networking events, where I meet a lot of other small business owners. And one of the excruciating things you have to do at these things is give a pitch in front of others, anywhere from 30-90 seconds (depending on the format) of your business.

And you can’t just say anything. You have to sex it up. You can’t just say, “I’m a divorce attorney”. Instead, you say something like, “I give my clients ease and comfort in their uncoupling process, protect what’s most valuable to them, and guide them in the next transition of their…