#pitchdis 2026 Wrap-up

This year’s event was one I will never forget for many reasons!

First of all, our main stats:

696 eligible pitches

1,190 requests

32 agents and editors participated

While we had fewer industry professionals participating this year, the ones who did loved your pitches. We shattered both the pitch record and the request record.

For those of you who have read one of these wrap-ups, you know the drill. I’m going to talk about what worked, what didn’t work, and what may be changed for next year.

What Worked:

Following the rules

I can’t thank you enough for being super respectful about the rules and policies this year. Only one pitch was ineligible due to it being a third entry from the author, and only one person that I know of had a typo in their email address. For nearly 700 pitches, this is incredible—and it made my life easier as I formatted and added the pitches to the site. So, thank you.

Additional requirements for agents and editors

This year, after agents and editors registered and I confirmed they were who they said they were, they received an email that they were officially registered for the event. This helped solve some issues we had last year.

In addition, when making requests, agents and editors were asked to include additional information in their submission requirements, like number of pages requested, if it already wasn't listed on their Query Manager link. This cut back on quite a bit of confusion.

Everyone’s patience!

I’ll get into it in the next section, but as most of you know, we had a major breakdown in the requesting software the first day of requesting. This caused a two-day pause on requests and an extended request window. I, admittedly, was kind of freaking out over here, but most of you were so patient and kind and understood technology can be glitchy at times. Your kindness helped so much as I was trying to get things up and running again.

What Didn’t Work:

The Requesting Software

*Warning* This is a long section so you’re welcome to skip it. But I’m always transparent, so I wanted to tell you exactly what happened and reassure everyone that all requests went through.

Tuesday morning everything was going great and pitches were going through. My neighbor called and asked me to go over and help her with something, so I did. As I was there I checked my email. I had a message from one of the two software systems we use for the requests basically saying hey, there was an issue but it was fixed, just letting you know. Before I closed it out, I got three more messages from them, but this time they were like URGENT, MAYDAY, THERE’S A PROBLEM! I had no way of accessing the software from my phone, so I had to get home to my laptop. I left as quickly as I could (within ten minutes of the first email). As I was coming home, an agent emailed me to say they didn’t receive an email receipt. I sent off a quick reply to them—not realizing that the #PitchDis email account wouldn’t let me send any replies and the email would send from my personal, not writing-related account (side note—one agent out there now knows the nickname I’ve had since I was a teenager 😂)

I got on the laptop and discovered the system had shut down completely. Agents and editors could still make requests, but they weren’t getting sent out. There was basically a backlog of over 500 requests. I immediately emailed all the agents and editors from my *professional* personal account and asked them to pause requesting until I could figure out what was happening.

Once again, Florence from #SmallPitch came to the rescue and told me this can happen when too many requests are submitted at once. This caused Gmail, which is linked to the software, to think the #PitchDis email account was spamming people, so they shut down all outgoing mail. The requests were there, but they’d slowly go out.

By the next day a good chunk had been sent, but there were still more than 300. Without getting too technical, they were in “parcels”, and five parcels were stuck. Four of the parcels had 20-25 requests, but the last parcel had the majority. I contacted agents who had made the requests that were stuck in that parcel, made a list of the titles they’d requested that were stuck, and then deleted the parcel. This process took me about five hours because I couldn’t just cut and paste the titles – I had to scroll through and actually type them all in. After I deleted the large parcel, the remaining parcels went through. The agents involved re-requested the pitches, which I confirmed against my records. Not a single request was lost. However, a few duplicate requests went out. But I’d rather participants get double requests than miss any.

I’ll discuss how I plan to keep this from happening again in the next section. But to sum it up—we broke #PitchDis because there were too many requests 😊

Entrants not filling out the pitch form correctly

Even though nearly everyone did great with entering their emails correctly, we had a different problem this year that caused a lot of headaches—people entering their names in the book title box. We had about a couple dozen people do this. I actually went back and checked the form to make sure that it said book title and yep, it did.

The reason why this was a big problem was that some people pitched two projects, both with their name as their book title. I get a receipt of what’s requested, but it only includes your titles and emails, not the pitch itself. So if someone got a request, there was no way to know which of their two projects got the request. Please remember to read each form section thoroughly next time so you won’t have to worry about this.

Emails and messages regarding requests and submission requirements

I’m used to getting at least a couple of messages about submission instructions. But friends, I got more than 100 this time. So we have to talk.

The request emails come from the #PitchDis address, but the submission instructions come straight from the editors and agents. I have NO idea what they are unless I open a request. I also have no additional secret submission information that they’ve given me. By receiving the request, you actually have more information than I do.

I had many people say they couldn’t contact the agent or editor to ask a question. Most, if not all, of the registrants had social media, and I saw several answering posts with questions. I urge you to check the agency/publisher site and social media before even sending your information to them. I do my due diligence when I approve registrations, but YOU need to do your due diligence before submitting to them. This should be something you do even when cold querying, not just during pitch events. This is something you also agreed to do by submitting your pitch form (remember those last few confirmation statements?).

Also, I got so many messages asking me to relay messages to the agents and editors asking them specific questions about their requests. I’m not doing that. As harsh as this might sound, I’m not a messenger and I don’t have the time or energy to be one. With nearly 700 pitches submitted by 559 writers, it would be impossible. Plus, it’s not fair to the agents and editors who have already given us so much of their time.

Negative messages about things beyond my control

Let me start by saying I don’t mean all negative messages. I mess up. I can do things better. I’m human and we all make mistakes. By all means, tell me if I do something wrong.

The problem arises when I get messages complaining about the lack of requests—some coming in within one hour of the request window opening.

Or messages about how an agent or editor didn’t reply to a submission.

Or messages about not getting requests because agents and editors don’t like the genre.

Or messages about publishers being too scared to publish a genre.

Or messages about not having enough agents or editors who represent a certain genre.

Or messages about agents and editors not requesting enough of a genre.

Or messages about not liking the agent someone got a request from.

I received at least one of every single one of these messages.

I understand these things can be frustrating, but I have no control over any of them. I can’t make certain agents or editors participate. I can’t tell them what to request. I can’t make them reply to anyone. And I certainly can’t make the publishing industry publish a certain genre.

It’s one thing to want to vent about it—and I totally get that. But if you’re messaging me because you believe I have a hand in making these decisions, that’s a different story.

What Will Change:

Not too many things, actually! But a few…

Agents and editors will be asked to limit their requests to 50 PER CHECKOUT next year. That means they can still request as many as they want, but they have to submit 50 or less at a time. This will help ensure we don’t have any software problems again.
As of next year’s event, I won’t be replying to any emails or DMs regarding requests until after the event is over.
The dates, maybe? I’m on the fence about this. September has been a good month for us, but it’s personally also one of my busiest months. This year was a lot for me, and I don’t know if I can handle another September like this.
The newsletter will probably get a new home. I didn’t want to move it to Substack in the first place, but I was on a time constraint and needed to do so before I was charged by our previous host, MailerLite. Since we now have over 900 subscribers I didn’t have many options for a free host. But I’ve found at least one more option now so hopefully I can move everything over soon.

What Happens Next:

I still have my subscription to the requesting software for the next few days, so I’m going to make a few tweaks while I still have access to it.

I’m always happy to hear about success stories and if you have one, I’d love to hear from you and add it to the site.

As usual, I’m starting my #PitchDis hiatus! I’ll still reply to messages, but probably not as quickly as before.

Finally, I can’t leave without thanking our amazing, patient agents and editors who continue to make this event possible. I’m sorry for all the emails this year! But we truly appreciate your commitment to boosting disabled voices.

And that’s it, everyone! Good luck with your pending submissions and I’ll see you in 2027!