You wouldn’t believe how many pitches I get sent to me about books involving cars and mechanics. It’s like I’m some sort mechanic-writing magnet. I don’t understand why everyone thinks that books about cars would be so appealing on a coffee table. It’s certainly not the first thing I’d read on a coffee table.
It doesn’t seem to matter to these people. Whether it’s a book about the best mechanics in Victoria or a crime novel where the detective is a sentient car, these manuscript pitches end up on my desk or in my email. This morning I received a pitch for a book where the inciting event is the protagonist getting a car air con regas. It doesn’t exactly scream “thriller” to me, and yet that’s the novel’s genre, apparently.
I’d just like to see something different every once in a while. I’d like to post about book pitches for novels with alien invasions or passionate romances. Literally anything but cars. I don’t care if it’s fiction or memoir. From this point on, there will be no more car pitches on this website. I’m drawing a line in the sand! This editor has had enough. If you have a novel about how you once got a car service near Adelaide, I don’t really care anymore. To be perfectly honest, I don’t even mind car repair. I don’t think it’s boring or anything. I simply want to see something different on this site, for a change.
I’m not saying pitches on this website will never feature cars, but I don’t want it to be the focus. So if your hunky half-werewolf, half-angel protagonist goes and gets his brakes repaired, that’s fine. If your hunky half-werewolf, half-angel protagonist works as a mechanic and needs to use his knowledge of the trade to solve a mystery, then we have a problem. For the record, I have my assistant looking through the pile and deleting all car and mechanic focused pitches, so don’t even try to send it in the hopes that I’ll have a change of heart upon reading your eloquent turn of phrase. I won’t. Truth is, I won’t even read it.