My pitch session script for ThrillerFest XVI

On June 29th I have four pitch sessions scheduled with literary agents at ThrillerFest XVI to try to interest them in my book, Chasing Money. I’ve spent the past month working on what I’m going to say to them in the ten minutes allotted to me. You can read it below.

You would think that after decades spent selling technology, business ideas, and startup investments, pitching my book to agents would be easy, but it’s not. It feels a lot more personal and uncomfortable, like I’m tooting my own horn. Also, if I were pitching a customer or an investor, I’d have a chance to get to know them a little before I launched into my pitch. This kind of speed-dating session feels very unnatural to me.

I wrote something out, and then I re-wrote it. I tried out different wordings in the car when I was driving cross-country from our home in Portland, Oregon to our summer house in Charlevoix, Michigan. Once I got here I kept playing with my pitch, trying to get something that felt interesting and natural. I’ve written out the full script, but I hope to make it more of a conversation, and just use the script as a reference point on our Zoom calls.

The advice I’ve read said to keep your pitch down to a few minutes, and then leave plenty of time for them to ask questions. I think I’ve hit the key points, but I’m not sure. I guess I’ll find out when I talk to the agents in two days.

Book Pitch for ThrillerFest XVI

Hi, my name is Michael Balter. I wrote a novel called Chasing Money. It’s a 90,000-word thriller, about ordinary men thrown into extraordinary circumstances. It begins, right away, with three entrepreneurs, from Portland Oregon, who attend an investor pitch meeting to raise capital for the startup, and one of them gets killed in the meeting. The other two are accused of stealing ten million dollars and a painting and they have five days to return it or they will be killed as well.

The two men, Martin Schott and Bo Bishop are terrified and even worse, they are clueless as to why this is happening to them. To avoid getting killed they agree to deliver the money and painting in five days. They assume their dead partner got them into this mess. They begin to dig through his life and unravel the truth. What they find is pretty shocking. 

They discover that their dead partner had bought his way into their company with money … [this part of the pitch contains spoilers, so I won’t share it here. I describe where their partner’s money came from, how that is related to the money and the painting the killer is seeking, and provide some information on the painting, which is a real missing masterpiece. I don’t give them the whole plot though, there are still some questions hanging to hopefully make the agent want to read it.]

One compelling attribute of the book, I think, is that the main characters are not the clichéd characters of most thrillers today. They’re not former CIA operatives, Navy Seals, spies, ex-cops, or lawyers with a drinking problem. They’re just ordinary guys. But they crash into a world with hitmen, international art deals, money laundering, Nazi loot, and random killings.

And, while Marty and Bo’s world has been turned upside down, everyone else’s world is still right side up. They still have to deal with their complicated lives. Marty’s marriage is falling apart, their startup company continues to flounder, and their need to pull in investor money is still critical.

The book starts with a murder and ramps from there.

I wrote the book to be suspenseful but also completely believable. A way to compare it with other works would be to think of it as if Dan Brown and Michael Lewis decided to write a book together based on an idea from Mario Puzo.

Can I answer any questions?

Michael