HUGE Congratulations to ANOTHER PitchMAS success story!
I'll let Stacey take it away!
I wrote my second novel, a YA contemporary, during nanowrimo 2012 and started querying in March. I am contest obsessed so I entered nearly every contest I could all spring and summer. I was picked for some, and not others.
One of the contest on the “not” list? PitchMas.
Ironic that I’m writing this success story for pitchmas when I was rejected for it, right? This is just a little more proof that contests are subjective. I used the same pitch that I used for Pitch Madness when I was picked. But this time, I wasn’t chosen.
BUT, because the contest hosts are AWESOME, they give an extra opportunity for writers— all writers, rejected and accepted alike. They run a twitter pitch party.
Funny thing is, I almost didn’t pitch. This was in July. I’d already been querying and contest-ing for 5 months. I’d twitter pitched numerous times in the past and even though I’d usually ended up with a few requests, I was pretty convinced all the agents had already seen my pitch. So what was the point?
But then the crazy twitter pitching started and I just couldn’t handle it. The hype, the craziness, the fun, the hope! So I tossed in this pitch:
“Anna's busted for prostitution + sent back to the suburbs to be "normal" again. A geeky boy named Arney becomes her only friend #pitchmas YA”
AND… I got a favorite, from Stephen Morgan of Entangled…
Entangled is a publisher I’ve honestly admired for a while. The only reason I hadn’t already submitted to them before this twitter pitch opportunity was because I was focusing on my agent search. But once he requested my manuscript I came up with all kinds of excuses as to why I should send. It might not be following perfect etiquette, since I still had my work out with agents, but I’m very glad I did it.
It took about 2 months for him to email me asking to talk on the phone. He wanted to work with me to revise my novel. He loved the writing, the voice, the concept, but thought the plot/structure needed some work. So I spent months emailing him back and forth, talking on the phone (more than once) until we got to a point that he felt her could take it to acquisitions (he took only a beat sheet and a new first 3 chapters to acquisitions, which was pretty insane.)
Another 2 months went by before I got another call from him. “Are you sitting down? It’s good news!”
They offered and I accepted!
This road was long and hard but totally worth it. I’m so excited to say that my debut novel will be published with Entangled Teen in 2015!
Thank you to the lovely ladies at Pitchmas for introducing me to my amazing editor and my amazing publisher. I owe you much!!
Read my full success story here: http://hopelessya.blogspot.
Follow Stacey on twitter!
