Elevator pitch

An elevator pitch is "a short description of an idea, product, or company that explains the concept in a way such that any listener can understand it in a short period of time," deliverable "in the time span of an elevator ride, or approximately thirty seconds to two minutes." It "typically explains who the thing is for, what it does, why it is needed, and how it will get done." The name is credited to elevator rides at Vanity Fair: Caruso, "a senior editor," pitched the editor-in-chief mid-ride, and "the concept of the elevator pitch was created."

For a novelist the elevator pitch is the spoken form of the written pitch kit: the logline is its one-sentence core, a high-concept premise is what makes it land in seconds, and the query letter is the same compression on paper.