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Inside The Cover
Book Reviews
"Pitching Relief" Soaked in passionate perspiration, you wake up from another X-rated Syd Field dream. The idea of your unforgettable "Linda Seger crafted" characters appearing on a grease-stained Happy Meal™ box makes you salivate. You even spent the morning revising, based on notes, from five of your "ex-Christmas card" list pals. Now it’s time to sell your 110 paged, Cocoon-meets-Scream-E-Ticket-thrill-ride-nursing-home-slasher-flick. You’re thinking mid six figures against "quit my job and buy a palace next to Aaron Spelling" kinda cash. You’re thinking kosher barbecues at the Spielberg house. You’re thinking of all the grammar school classmates who gave you gruff who you’re going to diss in your "damn the free car" Oscar speech. But first you have to pitch. You have to enter a new hell where all the rules are thrown out and so are the kid gloves. It’s time to face-off and convince Mr. "We don’t accept unsolicited submissions" that your 110-page epic is worth a 30 million dollar budget, a Rolling Stone magazine cover, and a Halle Berry nude scene. His response could be a four-word epitaph -- "what else ya got?" Or maybe, just maybe, a french-fried green-light - "That would make a great Happy Meal™." Pitching stinks. It really stinks. It really, really stinks! (I get paid by the word.) Even if your writing is kick-butt, pitching is that "rubbing your tummy and patting your head" bastard cousin of selling your screenplay. It’s the extrovert to your introvert. Left-brained or right-brained, pitching stinks. That’s why The Perfect Pitch by Ken Rotcop as told to James K. Shea (I thought the "as told to" line was reserved for memoirs of Shaquille O’Neal, Britney Spears, and ex-Survivor contestants) rocks. It’s a "read in one sitting" instruction book that fills a void that up until now, you could only complete by endless Internet search engine sessions or wearing down your VCR heads by countless viewings of The Player or by seducing a Creative Executive at some Screenwriter’s Workshop (just kidding, really). Part "How To," part "Can Do," The Perfect Pitch gathers everything you need to know about pitching in a conversational "let’s do lunch" style that is fun, fast, and informative. Focused on the sell, the book avoids laying down a rigid pitch structure and instead focuses on tricks and tactics that can be incorporated into your own "inner Bo Zenga" while entertaining with quotes, quizzes, top ten lists, interviews, and Rotcop’s own insights and advice. There are three types of information presented: "How To Pitch," "People Talking about Pitching," and "We better stick a few more pages in here so people won’t really feel ripped off." While the chapters seem organized by Chaos Theory—"Creating the Pitchmart" is followed by "Rotcop’s Key Questions" is followed by "Gimmicks and Props" is followed by "Fifteen Tips for Beginners" -- it doesn’t seem to hurt the read and gives it more of a "My Dinner With Rotcop" feel. You can dive into any point and enjoy a chapter or blast through it cover to cover. It’s the perfect read for a plane flight on the way to your next Pitch-Fest. The "How To Pitch" sections are chock full of sales and performance techniques, types of pitches you can use, opening hooks, Glengary Glenn Ross type closing lines, and tons of ammunition you will use at your next face-to-face. The "People talking about pitches" information delivers fun collections of takes on pitching from key players – advice from an agent, quotes from various executives, pitching experiences from pitch workshop members and a even some tips from a "pitch queen." And, to set the "show not tell" vibe, the entire book is sprinkled with the voyeuristic "Overheard at the Workshop" quotes. Additionally, a nice touch was the chapter "Pitches that Have Sold," a collection of pitches optioned at Rotcop’s own Pitchmart, which are extremely useful to compare to your own pitch to see if you "measure up." The book is padded with additional sections such as quizzes, tips for beginning writers, writing query letters, protecting your work, and contests. This padding seems out of place and is better served in other writing books but it certainly doesn’t hurt the book in any way. Rotcop knows his stuff. He teaches the popular Screenwriter's Workshop and produces his very own Pitchmart for writers, and now, for less than the price of what it would cost to take him to lunch and pick his brain, you can get this book (unless of course you were going to buy him the aforementioned Happy Meal™). Do I recommend it? Yes, in fact, I’ve already lent my copy out to a friend about to attend a pitch festival. So, if you’ve finished a screenplay and are focused on the selling, go get this book, pitch your screenplay, make a million dollars, and please stop the X-rated Syd Field dreams.
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The
Perfect Pitch 
