For the past fifteen or so years, I’ve worked as a graphic novel and comics editor. This trajectory has—luckily—coincided with the rise of graphic novels in bookstores and the explosion of interest from “traditional” book publishers in publishing graphic novels. For many of those years, graphic novels were the fastest growing segment of publishing, and in 2021 they became a billion-dollar market (that’s just book-length graphic novels; comic books hit about half a billion that year).
So, yeah, they are a pretty big deal. But what is a “graphic novel” exactly? How are they made? What kinds of comics are book publishers looking for? What about comics publishers (like DC and Marvel)? And can you make any money as a graphic novel creator?
I started this newsletter to cover these and other topics, and also because the mechanics of the publishing industry, graphic novels, and illustrated books in general are one of my absolute favorite topics of conversation. I’ll start out answering questions I’m commonly asked, but if there are topics you want to see covered, please ask!
Today’s topic is:
What does a graphic novel pitch look like?
As an editor I get asked this more often than you’d think—by comics creators, yes, but also by agents, internal publishing people (sales, marketing, etc.), even art school professors.
So here’s the thing: this is one of the ways graphic novels differ the most from other kinds of publishing (picture books, prose, etc.). If you are writing a novel, a publisher wants to read the whole novel before they decide to publish it. (Once a novelist is very established, they can get deals based on a “partial,” but not submitting a finished book is still a ding in the negative column.) But for graphic novels, I’ve found that having a finished book to submit is actually the wrong approach. Here’s why:
Mainstream trade publishers (that is, publishers whose main trade is in prose books) still think of graphic novels as a niche category, and this definitely extends to their acquisitions boards. What this means is that the editor trying to acquire your book is going to have to convince a room full of people who probably don’t read graphic novels for pleasure and definitely do not consider themselves experts in the format that your book is worth publishing. So you want to give them the promise of the graphic novel without making them read a full book. In fact, most adults who haven’t grown up reading graphic books or made an effort to make them part of their reading diet tend to have trouble with the format (I have a theory about this, for another newsletter!).
It’s hard to make a graphic novel, and it’s a much more iterative process then prose. Once your book is acquired, you’re going to spend at least a year, probably closer to three, writing your manuscript, thumb-nailing the whole thing, doing pencils, then inks, then lettering and colors. If you sell a complete book, what happens if your editor then gives you feedback like, “This story really needs a B plot,” or, “This decision your character makes here doesn’t ring true,” or “You really need some visual transitions between a lot of these scenes”? You have to go back and redraw. And you’re not going to be happy about it.
This is why graphic novels should be sold as pitches, not full books.
Your editor, though, wants to know that you can a) complete a full graphic novel, and b) that your story has a beginning, middle, and end. To do this, your pitch must have these elements:
A logline. This is the hook for your story. Something like, “John just graduated, moved back home, and is doing the one thing he swore he never would: working in his family’s hardware store. And worse, the other employee is Kevin, who bullied John in high school. So why does he suddenly find himself unable to stop thinking about him?”
This tells your readers the tone of your story, the central conflict, and who your main characters are. And it should make people want to know more.
A full synopsis. This is where you show your editor you can tell a story. Do not leave out the ending. I repeat, Do not leave out the ending. Teasing the setup is for the jacket copy. For now, you will need a plot that resolves itself, with characters who have full arcs.
SIDEBAR: Maybe you have a five-book arc planned and so your first book just has to end on a cliffhanger. If this is you, please reconsider. Your first book needs to find a readership before your publisher is going to feel confident publishing the next four. And to do that, it has to be a satisfying, complete story. This doesn’t mean you can’t, or won’t, publish those next four books. But a publisher is going to be a LOT less interested in a story that they know from the jump will take five books to tell.
At least three spreads of completed art. Completed means, inked, colored, lettered. That’s six pages. At the minimum. Will these six finished pages be in your final book? Maybe they will, maybe they won’t. But what they will do is give a sense of your visual storytelling, and your voice. These do not have to be from the beginning of the book, but they should be sequential.
Not mandatory, but nice to have:
Character art and descriptions. This tells your potential publisher how well you know your characters, and also gives the pitch some additional hooks for pulling interest. For instance, maybe John from our logline above has a little sister who is very Goth and keeps frogs around the house. The sister may not show up in your sample pages, but she’s probably a delight, and you just know those frogs are going to cause some sort of trouble.
Comp titles. When your editor brings your book to their acquisition board, they are going to have to come up with comp titles, so help them out. These are books that will sit next to yours on bookstore shelves. They don’t have to be truly similar to yours (“But my book isn’t like anything that’s been published before” is not an excuse), but they should have some complementary elements. Maybe they are both coming-of-age stories. Maybe both are portal fantasies. Maybe they both foreground romance. Please pick books that have been published in the past 3–5 years, and do not pick massive bestsellers. You may have written the next Dog Man, but it isn’t the next Dog Man YET, so try to be a little bit humble.
An author letter. Why this story? What makes you the right person to tell it?
Do not include:
A full script. This is probably a controversial opinion, but I think it’s better to hold on to your finished script (if you have one) unless your editor asks for it. I wouldn’t want this to be part of the package that goes to the acquisitions board, since graphic novel scripts can take so many forms (does it have art notes or just dialogue, etc.) and, again, we are dealing with people who are not graphic novel natives.
Sketches of anything. As an editor, I always found sketches as part of a submission to be a red flag. Graphic novels are hard work, so I want to know that you are willing to do that hard work, and put your best foot forward. Please, just send finished pages.
Good luck on your graphic novel journey!
Graphic novels you should know about
The Curlfriends series by Sharee Miller: Like the baby-sitters club without the babysitting!
Thieves by Lucie Bryon: Great Heartstopper vibes!
Yay, congrats again Andrea, I’m so excited for this newsletter!
Since I am also asked over and over again “how do you pitch a graphic novel,” it’s great to see your take on it.
You mentioned that all graphic novel pitches should have at least three spreads (6 pages) of final art, which I agree with. You also said at the end that you discourage creators from including sketches in the pitch. I wanted to clarify what you meant by that, because I often tell creators that it’s OK to include “tight pencils” in the sample pages they include in a pitch, as long as they ALSO have at least three or more spreads of final art. What do you think about that?
(I certainly agree that including thumbnails in a pitch would be a big no-no!!)
I think part of the reason creators get confused about what they should and shouldn’t do is because terminology can sometimes be amorphous — for example, when we (meaning everyone in the industry) say “sketches,” do we mean “thumbnails,” or do we mean “tight pencils”? And of course there’s that industry-wide bugaboo, what’s the difference between a “graphic novel” and a “comic”? LOL
One final piece of pitching advice I’d add is: leave out superlatives when describing your story. For example, don’t start your logline with something like, “In this tender story guaranteed to touch the hearts of thousands of readers….” The old rule of “show, don’t tell” applies to pitching just as much as storytelling.
On a separate note, I was especially intrigued when you mentioned that you have a theory about why people who didn’t grow up reading graphic novels or comics have trouble getting into the format. Please write that article soon. :)
Thank you for this very detailed and helpful newsletter!! Looking forward to reading more on these topics!!