Would You Buy This Book?

The first conference I attended required advance homework. Write the pitch - that one minute elevator schpeel that will turn a stranger into a buyer.

It is a tall order to convey the story and its commercial viability so quickly. In addition, one must list a number of relevant "comps," short for comparable books that will tell the agent-to-be where your book falls in the reader spectrum. It's not enough to mention a genre anymore. An agent wants to know whether you are writing the next Hunger Games or Game of Thrones, both fantasy but quite different from each other.

The gift of brevity often eludes me. I went through many edits, cuts, many reads out loud, until I condensed my pitch to the below. Which is way too long. In reality, I can only deliver all of it in a minute at a speed that defies comprehension. At a normal pace, I can barely finish paragraph one. Nervous in front of an agent, the pressure to hurry up and conclude starts around the third sentence.

Anyway, here it comes. My first try. The working title of the book by then was, FYI, "H.R. Confidential."

Would you buy this book? Do you think it's funny?

I got laughs when I presented it in front of the conference attendees. Do not answer my questions yet, though. Whether the above makes you interested in what has now been rechristened "Fringe Benefits" is immaterial, because, while true to the story, my pitch conveys (I think) a lighter mood than the writing, and it emphasizes the plot points that speak only to that mood. If you bought my book based on this, you'd be disappointed.

As to the comps, forget it. This was harder than the pitch. I couldn't come up with a single one. I think, or rather I fear that I have written a book in a style I do not read. I haven't read any of the Bridget Jones books and actually it's neither my desire not aspiration to have written anything comparable. But I couldn't come up with anything else. As to Fifty Shades, I hadn't read it either when I wrote my pitch. I have now, and, well, what can I say. One would do, or write, anything for a laugh. Fifty Shades of Open Enrollment is a cute joke. At least for those of us in HR.