Tho I didn't get any agent/editor love on last Thurs's #PBPitch, it was an insightful and valuable classroom for pitching/story ideas. I've spent several hours studying pitches, noting hot topics & correlating agent/editor likes. Tho not exhaustive, here are some observations:

Based on many searches, the top category winner was #NF, totally 82 pitches. And the predominant sub-themes were PB biographies, nature, environment and animals. A number of them also combined #STEM. There were two agent likes in the #NF (dog bios) category.

Top fiction topic was Dogs, coming in at 60 pitches, with Bears right on their tail with 59. I noted a number of dog-dying themes, How-To get a dog, dog bravery and dog vs X. For Bears, themes were friendship, not wanting to be a Bear, looking for bears, teddy bears, & acceptance

Perennial favorite #Dragons were 4th overall with 40 pitches. Notable themes were dragons as metaphors for emotions, dragons not wanting to use fire, bullying, fearing knights, and dragons being allergic to fire or smoke.

In 5th place was #STEM (either #NF or #F) and there was one agent like for this theme. There were 36 pitches I found for this category with sub-themes that covered friendship, shapes, fears, space, nature & ecosystems, animal lives, and counting.

Fairies and tooth fairies were the 6th popular topic at 35 pitches. Followed by 27 pitches for dinosaurs (I was expecting more of those) & 21 pitches for 1st day of school. First-day ones were about equal ratio of kids to animals and big themes for all of these were friendship,

acceptance, fears, and fitting in. Stories about unicorns and superpowers were tied at 20. And one superpower pitch about an animal finding its superpower received a like from an agent. Rounding out my list for the 9th and 10th spots were camp/camping and fractured fairy tales.

I expected more fairy tale pitches (I only found 15) but it could be the wording of pitches or the way I searched didn't reveal the true number. But if you're keeping count, there were only 3 agent likes out of 432 total pitches I found. And again, I only searched on 10 topics.

But it shows the challenge in earning interest. It showed me just how perfect and unique my #PBpitch needs to be. Because there were probably five times that many pitches in total. Maybe @PJMcIlvaine or @ShumakerDebra have more accurate numbers. Studying so many pitches also

gave me the chance to see a lot of confusing ones––ones were the MC wasn't clear, ones that didn't give me enough sense of the story, ones that seem to be 2 stories in one, and ones that were too vague. They helped me see what NOT to do with my own pitches.

The most important takeaway: I have to think hard about my story idea choices and be willing to abandon a beloved idea that isn't going to be unique or fresh enough in the sea of overdone #kidlit themes. Write only what's worthy of kids' time. They deserve that. #amwriting