Pitch Wars Blog Tour: The Best Thing I Got from Pitch Wars Wasn’t an Agent by Roxanne Blackhall

Way back when, there was a mentoring program called Pitch Wars.

On the surface, it was designed to help newer authors revise completed manuscripts and prepare them for the next step, usually querying (sometimes self-publishing.) That was the official goal. And yes, I was one of the lucky ones who signed with an agent after Pitch Wars.

But years later, that’s not what stands out most to me.

The real value of Pitch Wars was not the polished manuscript I left with. It was not the showcase. It was not even the agent offer that followed.

The real value was community.

And that, I think, is the part worth talking about now.

When I first found Pitch Wars, I was already a career editor. I had years of writing and editing experience for magazines and newspapers. I had two books published with a tiny indie press and a rough draft of a very bad romantic suspense novel. I also had very little understanding of the publishing industry as it applied to fiction, and I was deeply burned out from my experience with that indie press. I knew, very clearly, that I wanted something different. I just didn’t know how to get there.

That was the problem.

I knew writing. I knew editing. I did not know the book business.

And neither did most of the people around me.

My writing and editing colleagues were largely in the same boat. Some were in academia, which is not remotely helpful when it comes to commercial fiction. I had professional experience, but I did not have a roadmap. I didn’t have publishing-savvy critique partners. I didn’t have people who understood querying, genre expectations, submission strategy, revision at that level, or the emotional chaos that comes with trying to break in.

What I was missing wasn’t talent. It wasn’t work ethic. It was community.

I found that community first through a Facebook group for Pitch Wars hopefuls, and then on Twitter, because yes, this was a while ago. I was too intimidated to submit for the first couple of years, but I stayed close to the edges. I watched. I learned. I started meeting people. Slowly, I began to understand that what I had been missing wasn’t just information. It was connection.

Eventually, I submitted.

Eventually, I was chosen as a mentee.

Later, I became a mentor myself and ran the Pitch Wars blog. So I saw Pitch Wars from a lot of angles. And no, it was not perfect. Let’s not do nostalgia so hard we lose the plot.

There were controversies. There were personality clashes. There were missteps. Some people had great experiences; others absolutely did not. Some writers found support and lasting friendships. Some were left feeling excluded, disillusioned, or underserved. Both things can be true, and they are.

But setting all of that aside for a moment, because this post is not about defending or condemning Pitch Wars, there is one thing it did do well, at least for many of us.

It helped people find each other.

That matters more than a lot of writers realize, especially when they are just starting out.

Writing can be solitary. Publishing can be isolating. Put them together and you have a process that will absolutely mess with your head if you try to do it alone.

There is a long road between starting a manuscript and typing “The End.” Then there is the equally confusing road that comes after: revising, querying, submission, self-publishing decisions, marketing, career pivots, bad news, good news, and all the emotional whiplash in between.

And what you don’t know can hurt you.

It can hurt the book. It can hurt your growth. It can hurt your confidence. It can cost you time, opportunities, and momentum.

That’s why community matters.

You need people who know what you’re trying to do and can tell you, honestly, whether you’re actually doing it on the page.

Because here’s the truth: we are terrible judges of our own work.

Sometimes we think it’s far worse than it is. Sometimes we think it’s saying something clearly when it absolutely is not. Sometimes we’re too emotionally attached to a scene, a character, or a line to see the problem. Sometimes we’re too discouraged to recognize what’s working.

You can’t revise in a vacuum. And if the only people reading your work are friends and family who love you, don’t read widely in your genre, don’t understand the market, and would rather be nice than helpful? You are probably not getting the kind of feedback that leads to real growth.

Praise is lovely. Encouragement matters. But neither is enough on its own.

Every writer needs people who will cheer them on, yes. But they also need people who will challenge them. People who will tell them when the pacing drags, when the opening is weak, when the romance arc isn’t landing, when the plot twist makes no sense, when the book they think they wrote is not actually the book on the page.

You need people who can say, lovingly but clearly, “This isn’t there yet.”

That is a gift.

Just as important, you need people who understand the emotional side of this work.

You need a safe place to say the ugly things. To admit you’re jealous. To say you’re tired. To confess that someone else’s good news made you spiral for a minute. To vent about revisions, rejections, ghosting, bad advice, confusing feedback, publishing nonsense, and the scene you have rewritten so many times you’re ready to throw both the manuscript and your laptop into the sea.

That place is not social media. That place is your people.

Whether your writing community exists in real life, online, or (most likely) a combination of both, those relationships are what keep you steady when the process gets hard. And the process will get hard. Repeatedly. Rude of it, but true.

Pitch Wars created a lot of those spaces, both officially and unofficially. There were the public forums, yes, but there were also private groups where hopefuls helped each other strengthen manuscripts and submissions. There were query groups. Revision groups. Friendship groups. Side chats. Splinter spaces. Little pockets of support built by writers who needed something and decided to make it for each other.

That last part matters too.

Because one of the biggest lessons I took from the Pitch Wars era is that even when a program doesn’t fully meet everyone’s needs, writers will still find each other. They will build their own spaces. They will create the support systems they wish existed.

And that’s where the magic lives.

Because while Pitch Wars is gone, the need it filled is not.

Writers still need critique partners. They still need author friends. They still need trusted readers, sounding boards, industry-savvy peers, and people who understand both the creative and business sides of this work.

Writing is art.

Writing for publication is also business.

You need support for both.

Would I have learned some of these lessons without Pitch Wars? Probably. Eventually. The hard way, most likely, with more wasted time and more unnecessary mistakes. But Pitch Wars accelerated that learning for me because it introduced me to the people and conversations that made the industry feel less opaque and the journey feel less lonely.

That’s what I’m grateful for. Not because the program was flawless. It wasn’t. Not because every outcome was good. They weren’t.

And not because publishing success can be traced neatly back to one mentorship program or one polished manuscript. My own Pitch Wars manuscript died on submission, which is its own reminder that no single opportunity is a golden ticket.

I’m grateful because it helped me find community at a point in my career when I desperately needed it.

It helped me find mentors who were generous and insightful. It connected me with other writers who understood the road I was on. Later, it gave me the chance to mentor others and be part of their journeys too. Those relationships, those lessons, those shared experiences have lasted far longer than any one manuscript.

That’s the part I still carry.

So no, I don’t think you need Pitch Wars to build a writing life, but I do think you need community.

You need people.

You need the ones who will read your messy draft and tell you the truth. The ones who will celebrate your wins without making it weird. The ones who will let you fall apart for a minute and then remind you to get back to work. The ones who understand that this path is equal parts art, ambition, vulnerability, and stubbornness.

Find those people.

Build those relationships.

Create those spaces if you can’t find them.

Because programs come and go. Social platforms rise and collapse. Industry trends shift. Publishing is always changing.

But community? That’s the thing that endures.

And for a writer, it may be the most valuable thing of all.