How do I pitch my book?

Cafe Society
1

So I have a book. I want to sell it. Shorter than I might have liked, but we’ll deal with that later.

The problem is that I’m not sure how to market it. Young Adult, but not in any way shape or form whimsical, romantic, or even "Twilight-esque creepy “Romantic.” It’s a stark, brutal book about teenager monsters (literal, not figurative) being pitted to fight each other. Internally, they’re quite human, with complex motives and relationships. The main character is almost reversed - human with an ugly monstrous streak inside.

No, it’s not a horror book. I can only describe it as Harry Potter meets The Catcher in the Rye, which sounds as bad as, statistically speaking, my novel likely is.

So, the question is, how do I pitch a stark arch-realist book with a fantastic premise? Part of the point is that without a solid grounding, the fantastic elements do not work. I wanted - needed - to show the realistic and the insane intertwined.

*In case you’re curious, yes, the Protagonist get better by the end. And he has good reason for having irrational modo swings, even apart from being a teenager.

2

I held off responding because I know very little, especially when compared to fellow Dopers. But since you haven’t gotten a response, I’ll throw out my question:

Have you considered self-publishing as an eBook? I heard a story recently about an author having really good luck publishing her work as an Amazon eBook.

3

Would it be possible to post a link to a page or two from the book?

4

I don’t see the genre thing being a barrier. Dystopia is huge now (you have probably missed the crest of that wave). Evil machinery/steampunk themes are pretty big. Monsters are big. Assuming it’s a decent book, your premise shouldn’t be a problem–paranormal romance isn’t the only genre in YA.