Contest Announcement and Spreading Cover Love

Guys!! Next week I'm having another agent-judged contest!! Now with agent Hannah Bowman at Liza Dawson Associates.

The contest will be on March 6th. It will open around 9 a.m. EST, and it will close the 8th or as soon as 60 entries get posted.
If you want to get to know Hannah before participating, follow her on Twitter--she's really nice!

Rules:

1) Your pitch must only be 140 characters long. You can check the word-count on Twitter, or if you don’t have an account, go to Word or go here. If it’s longer, you’ll be disqualified.

2) The pitch can only be for finished YA novels. No other genre, sorry.

3) This is for unagented writers only.

4) Since I’m doing this to help, you don’t need to be a follower, but I’d love it if you are. And I’d love it you follow me on Twitter too. ;)

5) Please, spread the word. I’m not going to haunt you if you don’t, but it’d make me REALLY happy if lots of people came to participate.

What should you post?

-Your Name

-Title of your book

-Genre

-Word-count of your manuscript

-The Twitter (140 characters) pitch

-Your email

If you’re a bit lost: I’m pasting a few links so you can read more about writing short pitches.

Nathan Bransford Blog
Query Tracker
140 character pitch

Rachel Gardner’s Blog

 

 

On other news, Kate Evangelista's TASTE will be coming out soon from Crescent Moon press, and her cover was recently revealed... So I'm spreading COVER LOVE here! :)

This is the blurb! 

At Barinkoff Academy, there's only one rule: no students on campus after curfew. Phoenix McKay soon finds out why when she is left behind at sunset. A group calling themselves night students threaten to taste her flesh until she is saved by a mysterious, alluring boy. With his pale skin, dark eyes, and mesmerizing voice, Demitri is both irresistible and impenetrable. He warns her to stay away from his dangerous world of flesh eaters. Unfortunately, the gorgeous and playful Luka has other plans.

When Phoenix is caught between her physical and her emotional attraction, she becomes the keeper of a deadly secret that will rock the foundations of an ancient civilization living beneath Barinkoff Academy. Phoenix doesn’t realize until it is too late that the closer she gets to both Demitri and Luka the more she is plunging them all into a centuries old feud. 

Success Story!

I am letting Angie Sandro take over my blog today... because her story made me SO HAPPY!
Here's her agent story! A big applause for her, please! =)

Thank you for inviting me onto Love YA blog, Monica. I am honored to be able to share how much you and your blog mean to me with your readers, because I’m sure they feel the same way as I do.

Fate, destiny, a random series of circumstances led me to Monica’s Love YA blog. I look back on this happy circumstance and think; this was when my life changed forever. Often, we can’t pinpoint those life altering moments. Times when the decisions we made would have taken us down radically different paths.

I’ve always liked the parallel universe idea and imagine my alternate selves living drastically different lives from the one I have now. I’m not jealous of those alternate me’s. I’m happy with the choices I’ve made throughout my life, and we all know that mucking about in the past has unintended, sometimes catastrophic, consequences. So if anyone ever offered me a trip in a time machine, I’d say, “No, thanks. I’ll avoid the Morlocks.”

I certainly wouldn’t change what happened in May 2011. It seemed like a normal day. I had doing my daily research for agents to query about my manuscript, JUJU’S CHILD.  I found a reference to Kathleen Rushall of Marsal Lyon Literary Agency through Joyce Alton’s Yesternight's Voyage blog.

I clicked the link and presto, I was at Love YA reading Monica’s interview with Kathleen. Everything about Kathleen was what I’d told myself that I wanted in an agent. I was so excited. I immediately queried her and received a full request for the manuscript half an hour later. That night we emailed back and forth, and I fell deeper under her spell. The next morning I received THE CALL.

It was one of the most exciting moments of my life. Kathleen told me that she loved Juju’s Child, and offered representation. I found my dream agent because of Love YA and Monica, and I can’t thank her enough for that magical interview with Kathleen because it changed my life forever.

Thanks, Angie for being here today!!

Two tips for THE CALL with a literary agent when offered representation.

Just so you know, guys, I would have paid GOLD if someone gave me these two tips before THE CALL.

CAVEAT: Works with scheduled SKYPE calls only.

1) Try to get/borrow a computer that doesn’t whir when warmed up. The agent might ask, “What is that weird sound?” And you might be too nervous to admit your computer is from the Flintstones era. And then you’ll end up more even nervous than when the conversation started.

2) DON'T try to curl up your eyelashes before The Call. The eyelash curler can snap against your eyelid (yanno, because you might press too damn hard since you are so nervous) and that could leave a big bruise right above your eye. AND also leave you half-blind for an hour. Seriously--don't curl your eyelashes!

<3

Mónica