I get a lot of ineffective pitches from classical music publicists. In fact — sad to say — I think most of the pitches I get from classical music publicists aren’t very strong.
Take this one, which came recently:
Hope all is well. I am following up about a possible review of XXX’s new album featuring pianist YYY. Details are below.
What’s wrong with that? “Details are below.” Never write this! Give us the information we need right now. Don’t make us work to get it. Because — this is a truth we’ve all got to face — you can count on people reading your email for no more than 15 to 30 seconds.
So hook our interest right from the start.
The email i’ve quoted could have read this way:
Hope all is well. I’m following up about XXX’s new album featuring pianist YYY. [Sentence rewritten, to make it move faster, so we get to the good stuff more quickly.]
On this album, XXX writes music for ukelele ensemble and found objects, making sounds never heard before. Click here for details. (This is the good stuff. First a sentence saying something that immediately hooks our interest. Then an immediate link to more info.)
Of course I know that the sentence I wrote — about what’s on the album — isn’t something we’ll often find. But in everything you pitch, there’s something interesting. (Or at least something that can be made to sound interesting.)
zLately I’ve been spending time with my consulting clients on things like this. Working with them to write pitches and other kinds of writing — bios, descriptions of projects — that get people interested, right from the very first sentence.
Such an important skill. But — to judge from the pitches I get — one that too few people (professional publicists very much included) know that they need.
That is definitely true. In my own feeble writing projects, I am constantly worried about the reader losing interest in what I’m saying quickly. When I was getting my education, many years ago, I think people were much more patient readers because there wasn’t so much to read. But now people’s attentions are getting torn to pieces, and anyone who wants to solve this problem has to think very deeply about how to write. (Sorry for violating that advice in the above.)
Glad you agree, though I don’t think the need to be interesting right from the start is due to some degeneration in our current culture. The great novels of the past all grip you from the first sentence. If you have any taste for Proust, you start reading — “For a long time, I’d go to bed early” — and you just can’t stop. Or, for a more down-home example, go back and read the start of “A Christmas Carol” (or, really, any Dickens novel). Gripping from the first sentence.
And, by the way, your comment does hold interest right from the start! “In my own feeble writing projects…” [which I bet aren;t so feeble) — that draws me in immediately.