You know, I think we’ve started going a little bit overboard on the pitch events across Twitter and Bluesky. Once they became hype events that fostered author and agent engagement, I think we made a few too many for the fun of it.

Am I complaining?

Of course not! Pitch events are a great way to foster community, meet new writers, find new books to fall in love with, garner some external motivation, and uplift all of us in an incredibly taxing industry. Not every event is made for every project anyways. Some events are geared toward certain genres, such as #PitDark or #SmoochPit. Some events are slated for completed manuscripts only, such as #SmallPitch. But there is a plethora of pitch events made for hype of all genres and all stages of writing that I see agents still pay attention to despite the influx of smaller events. I like to consider these ones the “big” events. The ones that became rather well established in the past year or so. Events like #questpit, #YouDeservepIt, #P2Ppit, and now #BluePit.

There’s no rule that says we have to do every pitch event that pops up either. That honestly wouldn’t be feasible for many of us. To immerse yourself in an event and get the best odds out of it is exhausting and time consuming. However, it does concern me that the more events we create, the less engagement we are going to get from agents and editors in our search for that coveted like. I saw it already in January where that agent engagement seemed to be more limited to a few select events. Namely, those “big” events I mentioned.

Most of the new events seem to be popping up on Bluesky alone. Understandable, considering the mass exodus of writers in November of 2024 from Twitter to Bluesky, and the new Twitter AI policies that still scare the shit out of me. Some events are happening on both platforms yet in varying degrees though, whether on the same day (madness!) or on separate days.

In January alone, there were six pitch events. Six. That’s more than one a week. Actually, they all happened in a two week span from the 13th to the 28th. It could easily have been those pesky New Year resolutions that pushed so many events in a short time span. Except, that logic goes out the window when you look at February’s events. There’s another six, and who knows beyond that yet. The only good news about February is it’s a lot more like one a week instead of six in fifteen days, but still…

Speaking of February, has anyone else noticed that #questpit and #MSWLDay are both on February 12th? I feel like that could be problematic.

You know what else I’ve seen an uptick in since we began creating more and more pitch events?

Scam accounts and bots. Specifically, scam accounts of real authors, agents, and editors making our hopes sore with what we believe is one of those coveted likes. Only for those hopes to be dashed against the rocks when we look deeper and find two and two don’t actually equal up to four. Mel Reynard (@MelJRey) shared a great thread on Twitter for catching those red flags of scam accounts that I highly recommend checking out or bookmarking.

We shouldn’t let such slimy doings dull our love for pitch events and our stories, but it can certainly put a damper on that everlasting hope we foster during these events. Because, let’s be honest, we’re all a little delulu but we’ve also all struggled with that bitch named Imposter Syndrome.

Anyways, my point comes down to this: Are we pitch eventing too much?

Agents and editors already have their plates full of inboxes bursting with queries, partial and full requests sitting impatiently in their folders, current clients on sub and beyond to respond to, day jobs, families, and gods know what else. With this many pitch events I feel as if we might be burning the midnight oil just a little too hard. Agents can’t afford to take time out for browsing hashtags six days a month for the foreseeable future. They will be forced to pick and choose which events they pay attention to. I fear that we may oversaturate the eventing field and drive agents away from participating at all if we keep it up. That it may in fact become all about hype and nothing about industry interaction.

Does any of this mean I think we should stop these events? Absolutely not! Do I think we should slow down a little and pace these out better? Yeah, maybe. Or maybe we just need to be clearer with some events that they are for hype only and give the agents a pass once in a while.

I won’t stop pitching my heart out with my little WiP mythological fantasy and being delulu, but I, for one, have to start picking and choosing which events I pour my energy into and which ones I think have better odds for industry engagement.

What do y’all think? Are we pitching too much? Do we need to slow down or better discern events as hype only, industry participation only, or a chaos mix of both? I’d love if some agents or editors weighed in on this one, too!