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Friday, June 28, 2013

FINAL "#PitchMAS in July" RULES / SCHEDULE / DETAILS


This will be a three-day event (you will not have to participate in all three days if you don't want to) where your peers will first help you hone your Twitter/Blog pitches, then the top 50 blog pitches will go live on this blog, with a Twitter pitching party the following day!

You may notice that this event's format is a bit different than December's pitch event was, but trust us when we say we're trying to make this easy and fun for all involved. We are trying things this way to see if it helps the contest run a bit more smoothly.
*Most important detail: ALL manuscripts pitched must be completed and polished. If they are not completed and polished, we suggest finding a critique partner--and hey, that's how the two of us found each other! 


In the meantime, make sure you follow all of our blogs, and following us on Twitter probably wouldn't hurt either. (We often post the same #PitchMAS related info, but you never know when only one of us will tweet something important.)

#PitchMAS

The schedule for the Summer edition of our Holioday PitchFest will be as follows:


FRIDAY 7/5/13
*PITCH-HONING WORKSHOP*
(A blog post will go LIVE on 7/5, right here on the PitchMAS blog, where you will post your pitches in the COMMENT SECTION. Your peers will then hop around and critique/advise you on what works/doesn't work. We will also have a few pitch "experts" here to help out, as Tamara and Jessa WILL NOT be participating in the workshop for this pitch event.)


SUNDAY 7/7/13 - MONDAY 7/8/13
*SUBMISSION WINDOW*

For THIS event, we will be accepting your 35-word pitch submissions VIA EMAIL ONLY. Submission window willbe open from Sunday 7/7/13 at 9:00amPST until Monday 7/8 at 6:00pmPST. We will delete any submissions received before or after that submission window. 

Submission emails MUST look like this:

Email subject line: 
PitchMAS Blog Pitch Submission

Body of email:
Name: [Jessa Russo]
Title: [DIVIDE]
Category/Genre: [YA/Fantasy, Fairytale Redux]
Word Count: [70,000]
Pitch: [Things not on Holland Briggs' senior year plan: burning her ex's house down, poisoning her ex-best friend, or turning into the Beast from fairytale lore. But that's exactly what happens.]




THURSDAY 7/11/13
BLOG PITCH PARTY
The TOP 50 pitches will go live on the PitchMAS blog at MIDNIGHT. Agents and editors will have the entire day to comment and make requests. Please do NOT comment if you are not an agent or editor. THE ONLY EXCEPTION TO THIS RULE is if an agent/editor has asked a SPECIFIC question.
{35 Words or Less}


FRIDAY 7/12/13
TWITTER PITCH PARTY
All day long on Friday we will have our PitchMAS Twitter Party! Agents and editors will follow the hashtag #PitchMAS, reading your awesome pitches. ANYONE can participate, even if you didn't make it into the 50 selected blog pitches. However, your manuscript MUST BE COMPLETE. 
Twitter pitches MUST BE 140 Characters or Less. Don't make the agenst and editors work by breaking your pitch into more than one tweet. That will just annoy them and your fellow pitchers. 

Please keep your Twitter pitching to no more than TWO PER HOUR. 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 and people WILL remember you for it. 


Follow along with the hashtag: #PitchMas

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

PLEASE ask any and all questions in the comments below! One of us will respond as soon as we can. 

XO,
Jessa & Tamara 

20 comments:

  1. Thank you for this!

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  2. Actually, I do have a question (sorry). I tweet and blog as Mrs Fringe, can I submit to the blog pitch event using this name? If a query/partial/full is requested, that would be subbed under my real name.

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    Replies
    1. Yes, don't worry about the name. What's important is that we can email you if your blog pitch is selected. :-)

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    2. Thank you! :)

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  3. What email addy do we use? Or will it be posted when the submission window opens? Thanks.

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    Replies
    1. Hi Kathleen! The email address will be announced right here on the blog on Sunday morning, July 7th. :-)

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  4. What age categories are you accepting?

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    Replies
    1. All categories. Please refer to the agent/editor wishlists for specifics. We have agents and editors who rep/publish picture book through adults.

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  5. This is going to be awesome! Can't wait to get started! :D

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  6. Thank you both so much for this event. I've been sharing it with all my writerly peeps.

    Quick question - how many submissions are you allowed via email? If you have, for example, three books are you allowed to send three email submissions?

    Thanks!!

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    Replies
    1. Absolutely. They just have to be DIFFERENT books, not different pitches for one book. :-)

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  7. This is a very exciting opportunity! Love that you're doing the pitch-honing workshop, too. Do you two have any specific criteria for what you're looking for in a pitch, or will you just choose the top fifty based on personal preference/what you'd want to read yourselves? Thanks!

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    Replies
    1. We are going to be choosing based on the wish lists we received from the agents/editors, as well as selecting pitches that pique our interest, and pitches that are well-honed and clear. If pitches are unclear or messy, or do not draw us in, they won't get through. (Also, any pitches that do not follow the guidelines or come in before or after the window has been closed will be immediately disqualified.)

      Tamara is a librarian and avid reader, who has read books in probably every genre/category there is. I am an editor for a small publishing house, a former acquisitions editor, and an avid reader as well. We have both been involved in the writing world for a while now, and have actively participated in pitch contests ourselves. We're hoping that all of these things combined will make for fairness and a good eye when weeding through the pitches. :-)

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    2. Sounds good! Working furiously on my pitch. Thanks!

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  8. Do you recommend tweeting a pitch more than once? Or is one time sufficient?
    Thanks

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    1. Hi Susan, We recommend tweeting once per hour, as agents can scroll through the feed. When people tweet every couple minutes it's too much and the feed gets spammy. Once or twice per hour works best, for EACH MS, so if you're pitching a couple, feel free to tweet them both a couple times. :)

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  9. Hi! This is very fun.

    However, I've tried twice now to leave a reply to a comment on the Pitch Honing page w/ a pitch critique, but I just don't see the comment. This might well be my computer's fault (it's getting a bit elderly), but I've refreshed a few times & the reply to the comment's still not there, so I wanted to alert you in case there's some sort of comment limit or comment explosion point.

    Thanks!

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    Replies
    1. Hi Sarah,
      Because of the sheer volume of comments on the pitch-honing workshop, you'll have to click "'load more' at the bottom of the page a few times. :-)

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  10. pg สล็อต เกมสล็อตออนไลน์ได้รับความนิยมอย่างมากในปัจจุบัน โดยเฉพาะจาก PG SLOT ซึ่งเป็นนักพัฒนาเกมชื่อดังที่มีความรู้สึกทันสมัยและคุณภาพเยี่ยม ผ่านอุปกรณ์มือถือที่ทันสมัยและสะดวกสบาย

    ReplyDelete