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Friday, December 20, 2013

Happy Twitter pitching, lovelies! #PitchMAS

IT'S TIME FOR OUR TWITTER PITCH PARTY!!!

*Throws confetti and donuts*



WOOHOOO! It's time! It's time! 


--->We go live at 5:00 AM pacific time on 12/20/13, and the pitching will continue all day long. The agents/editors will respond to the pitches they want to request. IF an agent or editor does not respond, but favorites your pitch instead, please view their feed to see if they've mentioned what they want from starred pitches, OR ASK ONE OF US FOR HELP.

-->NEVER NEVER NEVER pitch directly to an agent or editor UNLESS THEY HAVE ASKED. 
Please follow this simple rule . . . at all times, not just during pitch events.

--->If you did not get through to the top 75, and even if you did, please join us for the Twitter Pitch Party!
ANYONE can participate!

--->BUT, your manuscript MUST BE COMPLETED AND POLISHED.

Did you read that? Go back and read it again. I'll wait. *whistles*

Completed and polished. Please, please, please do not pitch a bare-bones idea/concept or a half-written manuscript. No one will sign that, and they'll just be disappointed when they request pages that don't exist. This makes us sad.

--->Twitter pitches MUST BE 140 Characters or Less, and they HAVE TO INCLUDE THE HASHTAG. Don't make the agents and editors work to read what you're pitching because you've broken your pitch into more than one tweet. Don't make them follow a link. Just, NO. 

That will just annoy them, irritate your fellow pitchers, and ensure that your pitch gets lost among the others.

--->Please keep your Twitter pitching to no more than TWO PITCHES PER HOUR, per manuscript. Do not fill up the feed with your pitch over and over again. This, too, will annoy the agents and editors involved, as well as ruining it for everyone else--which I know you don't really want to do, do you? (Plus, people WILL remember you for it.)

Twitter pitch parties are a LOT of fun--trust us, we've both done many as both hosts and pitchers--but please don't get carried away. TWO PITCHES PER HOUR is plenty, and doesn't bog down the feed.

Please respect us, the agents and editors participating, and your fellow writers by respecting these rules.

You are welcome to pitch more than one manuscript, but please only pitch EACH manuscript no more than TWICE per hour.

Follow along with the hashtag: #PitchMAS

Make sure you follow us on Twitter. (We often post the same #PitchMAS related info, but you never know when only one of us will tweet something important, AND we tend to tweet from our personal accounts way more frequently than our poor neglected PitchMAS account.)

#PitchMAS

Tamara

Jessa

For the list of awesome participating agents and editors, please go HERE.

PLEASE ask any and all questions in the comments below or by tweeting to us directly (@feakysnucker or @jessarusso)! One of us will respond as soon as we can.

XO,
Jessa & Tamara

Thursday, December 19, 2013

#PitchMAS Entry 76 (EXTRA FREEBIE ENTRY!)

Title: THE LAST GREAT UNICORN ADVENTURE

Category/Genre: Middle Grade Adventure

Word Count: 47000

Pitch: Axual is going to run away from home. He captures two leprechauns, and they convince Axual that joining them on their quest to find stolen unicorns would be just like running away but even better.

#PitchMAS Entry 75

Title: The Beautiful Man

Category/Genre: Adult/Contemporary with paranormal elements

Word count: 84k

Pitch: Pretty boy actor Ambrose Lawson is a bit of an arse. But a near-death experience turns him into an angel and sets him on the road to redemption. He just doesn't know it.

#PitchMAS Entry 74

Title: THE ARCAVIANS

Category/Genre: Adult/Science Fiction/Thriller

Word Count: 110.000 words

Pitch: Twelve strangers, unexpectedly thrust through time, must battle dinosaurs, and each other, to find their way back before it’s too late—not only for themselves, but for the entire human race.

#PitchMAS Entry 73

Title: A LONG AND WINDING ROAD: A Caregiver’s Tale of Life, Love, and Chaos

Category/Genre: Narrative Non-Fiction/Memoir

Word Count: 68,000

Pitch: Seven weeks in an RV with two Alzheimer’s patients – Dad broke the toilet, Mom’s wet, my head hurts, David’s hungry, and we’re still driving. Not the ideal retirement, but still a caregiver’s dream trek.

#PitchMAS Entry 72

Title: My Sick Soul: The Johnson Diaries

Category/Genre: YA Psychological Horror/Thriller

Word Count: 82,000


Pitch: Doctors say Kaitlyn is a multiple personality in Carly’s body. But when Carly vanishes, leaving her behind, Kait must battle mental delusions or Haitian demonic possession to get her back. Found-footage style YA Horror.

#PitchMAS Entry 71

Title: BEAST

Category/Genre: MG/UF, Fairytale Redux

Word Count: 53,000

Pitch: Elliot’s soul is trapped inside a guilt-ridden beast and his best friend is locked in an asylum for believing it. Needing her help to free himself, he must risk his life to save her.

#PitchMAS Entry 70

Title: The Conch Shell of Doom

Category/Genre: YA Urban Fantasy

Word Count: 62,000
Pitch: All Bailey wants is a normal, anxiety-free summer break. Those plans go out with the tide when he learns his parents and their friends want to awaken an ancient monster and its powerful oceanic army.

#PitchMAS Entry 69

Title: The Death Clock

Category/Genre: Adult/Literary

Word Count: 99,000

Pitch: In Kit's world, everyone is born with the knowledge of when they will die. But when her ex-lover dies without warning, he leaves clues to a government secret: death isn't as predictable as it seems.

#PitchMAS Entry 68

Title: SLICE OF LIFE

Category/Genre: YA contemporary thriller

Word Count: 67,000

Pitch: Honor student by day, serial killer by night, sixteen-year-old Ella must protect her secret if she wants to keep her family alive.

#PitchMAS Entry 67

Title: A ROYAL TREASURE HUNT

Category/Genre: MG/Fantasy Adventure

Word Count: 36,000

Pitch: A dangerous treasure hunt. A skilled sorcerer bent on claiming the treasure. A hungry bear-dog. A vicious dragon. And more. Twelve-year-old Princess Cassandra’s quest to save her best friend’s life just might claim her own.

#PitchMAS Entry 66

Title: FRANKENDAD
Category/Genre: YA Contemporary/Light Sci-fi
Word Count: 76,000

Pitch: Eighteen-year-old Trinity’s bummer summer babysitting her brothers on a remote island morphs into a Gothic novel when she learns the island has been cursed with a monster that her father created.

#PitchMAS Entry 65

Title: ANGELIC

Category/Genre: Adult/Urban Fantasy

Word Count: 81,000


Pitch: The killing’s begun and Entlain D’Iammo is locked in the dark as hunters stalk the girl he swore to protect. If he doesn’t save her, the rebellion will succeed. And they’ll target the humans next.

#PitchMAS Entry 64

Title: ELUDING ILLUSIONS

Category/Genre: NA Paranormal Romantic Suspense

Word count: 55,000

Pitch: Emma faces a fear greater than the cursed book characters hell-bent on killing her; a date with her online-flame.  Through chaos and disaster, both will depend on love, lies and a little Gypsy magick.

#PitchMAS Entry 63

Title: LOCKER 103


Category/Genre: MG Magical Realism


Word Count: 45,000


Pitch: Homeless Winter Malone discovers that the school building she's
sleeping in is living, breathing... and trying to turn her into its
Soul. If she can't outsmart it, she'll spend eternity as Iowa's
ugliest middle school.

#PitchMAS Entry 62

Title: CONJURED

Category/Genre: YA Paranormal

Word Count:88,000

Pitch: The pact between a dangerous New Orleans witch hunting group and the Witch’s Council has come to an end and now sixteen-year-old Aurelie LaRue must perfect her craft or end up dead.

#PitchMAS Entry 61

Title: Lucid Dreaming
Category/Genre: NA/Urban Fantasy
Word Count: 72,000
Pitch: When Melaina – half Oneiroi, or dream spirit – treats a client for possession by a nightmare creature, she unleashes the wrath of an enemy who targets her job, her best friend, her family and her life.

#PitchMAS Entry 60

Title: RESTRICTED ACCESS

Category/Genre: YA/Dystopian

Word Count: 90,000

Pitch: Seventeen-year-old Amber loads her pistol as her boyfriend is escorted into the execution chamber in place of her mom’s real murderer. She has one last chance to set things straight. If there’s enough time.

#PitchMAS Entry 59

Title: HAUNTED EVER AFTER


Category/Genre: Paranormal Cozy Mystery


Word Count: 60,000


Pitch: Ashling may own a fairytale park, but she hardly has a fairytale life. And now she must stop two killers--one living and one a ghost--who are determined to protect StoryWorld's best-kept secret.

#PitchMAS Entry 58

Title: ROGER MANTIS

Category/Genre: MG/Fantasy

Word Count: 36,000

Pitch: Roger McGillicutty, 12, wakes up  Saturday morning to discover he's
turned into a five-foot praying mantis! And with school on Monday, the
carnival coming, and his baseball team playing their biggest rival next
week!

#PitchMAS Entry 57

Title: SENSORY DECEPTION


Category/Genre: MG/Adventure

Word Count: 38,000


Pitch: Twelve-year-old super-taster Savvy goes to CIA boarding school and discovers she's a quintuplet. Each sister has one heightened sense, and their births were a mistake. Now, Savvy must outsmart spies before she's double-o dead.

#PitchMAS Entry 56

Title: OBLIVIOUS
Category/Genre: Adult Thriller/Detective Fiction
Word Count: 90,000

Pitch: With the body count climbing the more he probes, homicide detective Jack Easley's latest case points to his own family--the one that still tells him his sister's death was a cut-and-dried suicide.

#PitchMAS Entry 55

Title: Dancing in the Athenian Rain

Category/Genre: NA Historical Romance (Time Travel)

Word Count: 84,000

Pitch: Modern day Donna awakes in Classical Athens. Sold as a wife, falling in love with the Athenian soldier is the last thing she wants, but is exactly what she needs to discover who she is.

#PitchMAS Entry 54

Title: Taking a Chance

Category/Genre: YA Contemporary

Word Count: 75,000

Pitch: Romeo and Juliet meets Perfect Chemistry when wrestling stud Xavier and clarinet expert Danielle must push past a family vendetta, a wrestling–induced eating disorder, and physical abuse to be together.

#PitchMAS Entry 53

Title: AMERICAN PRAYER

Category/Genre: Adult Commercial/Literary Fiction

Word Count: 99,000 words

Pitch: The justice system saved Dean Goodnight’s life. Now he’s a public defender estranged from his Choctaw heritage. To keep a Choctaw client off death row he’ll need to rediscover his roots – and break the law.

#PitchMAS Entry 52

Title: PERSONAL GEOGRAPHY

Category/Genre: Adult/Erotic Romance

Word Count: 72,000

Pitch: India’s a professional powerhouse but during her “lost weekends” she craves a submissive role. When she meets Cris, she’s expecting seventy-two hours of mind-numbing, contractually-defined sex. Instead, she’s enchanted. Maybe some borders are worth crossing.

#PitchMAS Entry 51

Title: A Unicorn Without a Horn: An Alphabet Book of Unlikely Animals

Category/Genre: Picture Book

Word Count: 280

Pitch: Alligators with no teeth, Bees without stingers, and Camels without humps help children learn their ABC's in this humorous alphabet book filled with creatures who are missing their signature traits.  

#PitchMAS Entry 50

Title: A Temporary Convenience

Category/Genre: Adult Romantic Mystery

Word Count: 89,000

Pitch: The pluses of Beth's new job: prestige, high pay, a hunk to work with, and a possibly glorious future.  The minuses:  a lying boss, hinky records, IRS interest, and her predecessor’s sudden disappearance.  Decisions, decisions. 

#PitchMAS Entry 49

Title: What's Inside? 

Category/Genre: Picture Book

Word Count: 475

Pitch: When Mouse finds an insecure Egg that refuses to hatch, he makes it his mission to get Egg out of his shell while proving that Egg has something important to offer the world.  

#PitchMAS Entry 48

Title: Shadows in the Spotlight


Category/Genre: Queer literature/Popular fiction


Word Count: 86,500


Pitch: Metal rocker Marc Gadling had everything: a rock career that spanned two decades, custody of his son, and a boyfriend who loved him. He just wasn’t counting on that test to come back as positive.

#PitchMAS Entry 47

Title:  The Half-Life of Heartache

Category/Genre:  Contemporary YA Fiction

Word Count:  77,000

Pitch:  Hawaii isn’t all coconuts and rainbows.  Seventeen-year-old Indigo Woods officially hates summer break because she’s trapped with her alcoholic mother.  When the newspaper internship starts, she meets Dean Michaelson.  And faces her deepest fear: Trust.

#PitchMAS Entry 46

Title: AND WE ARE ALL DAMNED

Category/Genre: YA Gothic horror

Word Count: 70,000

Pitch: On an isolated island, beneath a canopy of resurrection ferns and prickly palmettos, a preternatural plague is unleashed across an insular Victorian colony when orphans Haeden and Veanne unearth the dark legacy of their bloodline.

#PitchMAS Entry 45

Title: ASPIRIA


Category/Genre: YA/Science Fiction


Word Count: 80,000


Pitch: A Big Bang Theory cast in a futuristic Night Circus setting driven by an Animal Farm-type plot. Welcome to ASPIRIA: where academic achievers like Dominy are worshipped like rock stars—until the new director arrives.

#PitchMAS Entry 44

Title: A Light in the Sky

Category/Genre: Adult/Science Fiction

Word Count: 110500

Pitch: Stranded in the distant past, physicist Susan Arasmith is delighted with her new friend from the future, until she learns he has to kill her to save the human race.

#PitchMAS Entry 43

Title: THE BRETON BOYS


Category/Genre: Upper MG Fantasy


Word Count: 65,000


Pitch: No one has ever come back to the woodlands of Hollenmere after being kidnapped by the fauns – until Reid. Now their queen wants him dead, but her minions snatch Reid's twin by mistake.

#PitchMAS Entry 42

Title: EMMY & MARI

Category/Genre: YA Contemporary

Word Count: 76,000

Pitch:  Blindsided by her best friend Mari’s sudden death from drug use, grieving Emmy pieces together the secrets kept from her when she finds unfamiliar photographs on Mari’s camera, including many of a mysterious older guy.

#PitchMAS Entry 41

Title: Entertaining the Enemy

Category/Genre: Contemporary Thriller

Word Count: 70,000

Pitch: Afghanistan is no setting for a fairytale. Dancer Eve is entertaining troops on the front lines when kidnapped by terrorists. Will her rogue Special Forces soldier rescue her before corrupt politicians condemn her to death?

#PitchMAS Entry 40

Title: THE HUNTING PATH 


Category/Genre: YA, Thriller 


Word Count: 58,000 


Pitch: Mirri's to-do list: pretend she's not a psychic, survive her dreamy new boyfriend's attempt to kill her, and avoid being enslaved by the government. All that, and she still has high school tomorrow.

#PitchMAS Entry 39

Title: SKETCHBOOK SCRAMBLE


Category/Genre: Picture Book/fiction


Word Count: 700 Words


Pitch: Two sketches flee from an eraser-crazy illustrator. They seek safety in a fairy tales book, only to find a far more dangerous threat from a witch, a giant and the Big, Bad Wolf.

#PitchMAS Entry 38

Title: RENEE REINVENTED

Category/Genre: MG Contemporary

Word Count: 50,000

Pitch: When 12-year-old Renee escapes Hollywood and her celebrity parents for a Maine boarding school, she tells her new friends she’s an orphan… and finds herself crushing on a boy who really did lose his parents.

#PitchMAS Entry 37

Title: SUBMERGED

Category/Genre: YA Folklore Retelling

Word Count: 50,000

Pitch: A treasure-mad family is after Kova and her Atlas coin—a gift from sea monsters that raised her. But, outwitting her kidnappers proves difficult when the enemy is a charming boy with a crooked smile.

#PitchMAS Entry 36

Title: BROKEN WORLD

Category/Genre: NA post-apocalyptic/zombie

Word Count: 73,000

Pitch:
With zombies roaming the Earth, ex-stripper Vivian Thomas' only goal is to keep her daughter safe. But she didn't count on having to protect her heart too, especially not from a redneck like Axl James. 

#PitchMAS Entry 35

Title: The Noisy Ninja Goes To School

Category: Picture Book

Word Count 960

Pitch:  Imagine a 5 year old pirate, raised by ninjas, attending his first day of Ninjagarten. Can Barnibus tame his ruckus-raising nature and make the grade? Or will his first day of school be his last?  

#PitchMAS Entry 34

Title: COLLISION


Category/Genre: NA Romantic Mystery


Word Count: 70,000

Pitch:
When eighteen-year-old Kara Jones discovers her dad isn't actually related to her, she must follow a trail of clues that starts with her mother's lies, and ends with a madman. 

#PitchMAS Entry 33

Title: A BLIND EYE

Category/Genre: Adult/Psychological Thriller

Word Count: 90,000

Pitch: A young detective. An irresistible sociopath. Two women with equally dark pasts square off in a deadly game. One has something to prove. The other has someone to kill.

#PitchMAS Entry 32

Title: Raising Caine

Category/Genre: MG/Contemporary

Word Count: 55,000

Pitch: Sinclair Caine wears nothing but orange. Sarah Kingsbury wants to find out why. The answer involves a kidnapping, an illegal road trip, and a small Kansas town that will never be the same again.

#PitchMAS Entry 31

Title: FATED

Category/Genre: YA/Contemporary Fantasy

Word Count: 69,000

Pitch:
When Kenzie’s told she’s a Fate and goddess, she competes against her sisters to determine which role she’ll inherit in deciding destinies. If she ends up cutting life-threads, her mortal boyfriend might not forgive her.    

#PitchMAS Entry 30

Title: LIFE'S MORE FUN WHEN YOU TALK TO STRANGERS

Category/Genre: Travel Memoir

Word Count: 100,000

Pitch: One man embarks on a 260-day road trip around North America to prove his personal credo: Life's More Fun When You Talk to Strangers. A travel memoir about the power of connection.

#PitchMAS Entry 29

Title: PALOMA


Category/Genre: YA/Suspense/Multicultural


Word Count: 79,000

Pitch: When Paloma discovers that her father has been extorting sex from his undocumented housekeeper, she begins a quest for revenge and freedom that leads her into the hands of Mexican kidnappers.

#PitchMAS Entry 28

Title: SIDE OUT


Category/genre: Upper Middle Grade (contemporary)


Word Count: 51,000


Pitch: After an embarrassing video of 13-year-old Cass and her autistic brother goes viral, Cass finds a new school and sport, but as the hits grow, Cass's past might be revealed sooner than she thinks. 

#PitchMAS Entry 27

Title: Tin Hearted Man

Category/Genre: sci fi / mystery

Word Count: 97,500

Pitch: Jack Sung Lee, a Council of Worlds agent from Retro City, where people re-live the 1980's in tech denial, tackles mind-controlling A.I., aliens, a homicidal android and police corruption in the modern 31st century.

#PitchMAS Entry 26

Title: Case In Point

Category/Genre: young adult contemporary

Word Count: 61,000 words

Pitch: When Casey reports in her high school paper that a teacher is pregnant by a senior, she gets sucked into a scandal that threatens her life in this Veronica Mars style mystery. 

#PitchMAS Entry 25

Title: DIRTY RAINBOW

Category/Genre: YA/Science Fiction

Word Count: 56,000

Pitch: The mindless drone cyborgs used for manual labour since the extinction of males have always freaked out seventeen-year-old Jenna McBride. But she should be afraid of the person who ordered their creation—her mother. 

#PitchMAS Entry 24

Title: RAZOR BLADE KISSES

Category/Genre: Young Adult Dark Contemporary

Word Count: 76,000 words

Pitch: Derek was supposed to be seventeen-year-old Rachel's escape, Vegas her heaven. Now he’s her pusher, and Sin City her prison. If she runs, she’s dead. Her cutting, uncontrolled. Her goal, to survive and return home.

#PitchMAS Entry 23

Title: HAUNTED PAGES

Category/Genre: YA/Fantasy, Ghost

Word Count: 60,000

Pitch: When a ghost discovers he can possess the minds and bodies of readers, a teenaged boy finds himself checking out more than he bargained for from the local library.  

#PitchMAS Entry 22

Title: ROYAL TRIAL

Category/Genre: YA Historical Fantasy(lite) w/romantic elements

Word Count: 85,000

Pitch: How to lose a guy (and destroy his kingdom) in five days: combine obsessive romance with the madness of Henry VIII's England, the opulence of Louis XVI's Versailles, and the intrigue of Cesare Borgia's Italy.

#PitchMAS Entry 21

Title: The Afterlife of Lizzie Monroe

Category/Genre: YA

Word Count: 60000


Pitch:
If Shane had it to do over again, he wouldn't have gone out that night. He wouldn't have burned down the church. And he sure wouldn't have taken the annoying dead girl home with him

#PitchMAS Entry 20

Title: WHEN IT ALL WENT AWAY

Category/Genre: YA Contemporary

Word Count: 58,000

Pitch:  Crazy colored hair? Check. Conquering stage fright and singing in my first-ever open mic night? Check. Best friend at my back? Check. Getting over my ex-boyfriend? I'll get back to you on that one. 

#PitchMAS Entry 19

Title: Welcome H.O.E.M.


Category/Genre: MG/Fantasy


Word Count: 50,126


Pitch: When troublemaker Mason is forced to volunteer at a secret government archive, he discovers he can time travel through other’s preserved memories. Can he survive experiences of the famous and infamous? Will he ever learn?

#PitchMAS Entry 18

Title:  Invent-A-Julie

Category/Genre:  MG Contemporary, humorous

Word count:  56,000

Pitch:  Using cow poop, hydroponics, and an epic food fight, 12- year-old Julie Beamont creates a workable invention for the town contest, but will her thieving science teacher end up getting the credit – and the $25,000?

#PitchMAS Entry 17

Title: Two for the Rent

Category/Genre: NA Contemporary Romance

Word Count: 91,000

Pitch: 
Tuition: $43,000
Rent: $550
Cat Food: $12
Topher falling in love with his best friend Matt: the possibility of losing everything that matters in his life - including Matt himself.

#PitchMAS Entry 16

Title: THE LITTLE ELEPHANT KEEPER

Category/Genre: PB/humorous historical fiction

Word Count: 460

Pitch: Eleven year old Hattie Snyder is the only girl in New York City with her very own elephant. True story.