It all started as a joke. Zilla posted a reverse Manuscript Wishlist tweet, inviting agents to query her instead of the reverse.

Dear Agents,
I am currently open to queries asking to represent my novella, Query. Please include a biography, three books you've read that made you feel feelings, and a photo of your cat.
Love Always,
Zilla
P.S. Format the letter in Comic Sans

— zillanovikov is open to queries from agents (@zillanovikov) April 6, 2022

The Night Beats community piled in on the joke, and pretty soon we’d invented our own (fictional) Twitter Pitch Party, #FlipPit. We wrote some copy, Madame made a graphic, and Rohan tweeted out the event.

Are you bored of the same old pitching events? This May 1st the tables will be turned. #FlipPit is an event where agents fight over likes from authors. Any agent with a complete and edited #MSWL can pitch, and they might just find their dream author. 🙌🙌 pic.twitter.com/2QvBlxuAFz

— Rohan O'Duill sci-fi writer 🇮🇪 (@rohan_oduill) April 9, 2022

The only problem was…everyone loved the idea. Writers thought it was a great way to find new agents and presses to query. An agent said they’d love an event to get their manuscript wishlist seen by authors. We had somehow accidentally stumbled on a winner.

Back to the drawing board (writing board?) and we turned the rules for #FlipPit into something a bit less absurd. Though hopefully still with a taste of the original fun!

See our next post for the real rules for #FlipPit. We hope that the writing community enjoys this version of #FlipPit as much as we loved making it!