Tuesday, April 17, 2012

The Writer's Voice Details!!

First of all, I've missed you, guys--I've been a bit busy lately, so I haven't been hanging around in the blogosphere too much. BUT! I promise you're going to see a lot of me in the next few weeks. And here's why!

Cupid of Cupid’s Literary Connection, Brenda Drake of Brenda Drake Writes, Krista Van Dolzer of Mother. Write. (Repeat.). and I (of Love YA, of course!) have been organizing this EPIC contest: “The Writer’s Voice.” It is a a multi-blog, multi-agent contest hosted by the four of us. We’re basing it on NBC’s singing reality show The Voice, so the four of us will serve as coaches and select projects for our teams based on their queries and first pages.

Here’s the timeline:

May 3
Everyone submits their entries
May 3-10
We select our team members from “The Writer’s Voice” Blogfest
May 10-17
We coach our team members, helping them polish their entries
May 17
We post our team members’ entries on our blogs
May 21
Agents vote for their favorites

Submissions

To enter, your manuscript must meet two conditions: First, it must be COMPLETE, POLISHED, AND READY TO QUERY, and second, it must be in one of the following genres:

Adult Fantasy
Adult Science Fiction
Adult Romance
YA fiction (all subgenres)
MG fiction (all subgenres)

We’ll accept entries in two time slots. The first submission window will open at 9:00 a.m. EDT on Thursday, May 3, and will close once we receive 75 entries. The second submission window will open at 9:00 p.m. EDT on the same day and will close once we receive another 75 entries.

We’ll accept submissions via one of Mister Linky’s Magical Widgets, which we’ll post on all four of our blogs on May 3. Once you sign up for the blogfest, you’ll post YOUR QUERY and THE FIRST 250 WORDS of your manuscript on your blog. Then you’ll send your query, first 250 words, and A LINK TO YOUR BLOG POST in the body of an e-mail to TheWritersVoiceContest(at)gmail(dot)com, with your blogfest number, title, and genre in the subject line.

In summary, you must follow these three steps to enter:

1. Sign up for the blogfest during one of the submission windows listed above.
2. Post your query and the first 250 words of your manuscript on your blog.
3. Send your query, first 250 words, and a link to your blog post to TheWritersVoiceContest(at)gmail(dot)com, with your blogfest number, title, and genre in the subject line.

Selections

We’re building our teams via “The Writer’s Voice” Blogfest, so YOU MUST HAVE A BLOG TO PARTICIPATE IN THIS CONTEST. We don’t care if you’ve had it for five years or five minutes; we just want to be able to fight over you in public:)

We coaches will review the entries by e-mail, but when we find one we want, we’ll leave a comment on your post that says something like, “I want you!” If more than one of us wants you on her team, you’ll have to pick which coach you want to work with.

Coaching

We’ll select our 10 team members by May 10, then spend the next week helping them put a final polish on their entries. You won’t have to take all of our suggestions, of course; we just want to help you make your entry the best that it can be before the agents get a look at it.

Voting

On May 17, we’ll post our team members’ queries and first pages on our blogs so that the agents can review them. Here are the 8 awesome agents who’ll be voting on your entries:

Louise Fury of L. Perkins Agency
Susan Hawk of The Bent Agency
Tricia Lawrence of Erin Murphy Literary Agency
Kevan Lyon of Marsal Lyon Literary Agency
Lauren MacLeod of The Strothman Agency
Taylor Martindale of Full Circle Literary
Andrea Somberg of Harvey Klinger, Inc.
Roseanne Wells of Marianne Strong Literary Agency

The agents will vote for their favorites on May 21. Each vote will count as a partial or full request depending on how many votes the entry receives. If an entry receives 1 or 2 votes, those votes will count as partial requests. If an entry receives 3 or more votes, those votes will count as full requests.

Voting will stay open for twenty-four hours, at which point we’ll determine which coach’s team received the most votes. That coach will win bragging rights for time immemorial, and everyone who received requests will be able to submit their materials to all the agents who voted for them.

So get those queries and first pages polished up, then meet us back here on Thursday, May 3, at either 9:00 a.m. or 9:00 p.m. EDT. We can’t wait to read your entries! (And of course, if you have any questions, feel free to ask them in the comments below.)

<3
Mónica

32 comments:

  1. This sounds like an amazing contest!! Thanks for this awesome (& fun) opportunity. I can't wait!

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  2. What fun! I don't normally post any writing on my blog, but for this FUN, I just might consider. :)

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  3. This sounds awesome! Are there any restrictions on who can participate? For example, if someone was in a past contest on one of these blogs (such as the Agent Invasion contest ending on Cupid's blog today), can that person still enter?

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  4. Wow! You've got me bouncing up and down in my seat. I think I'm in!

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  5. This is going to be so awesome! THANK YOU for the opportunity!

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  6. That is such a cool idea. I love it. This will give extra incentive to polish those pages quickly.

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  7. I love this!!! Wish I was playing!!! I'll have to cheer!!!!

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  8. Darn it! I'm still working on my revision request. I'll have to chear with Kimberly instead.

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  9. One of these days, I'll have a finished, polished piece of work ready when you offer one of your great contests! Ugh!

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  10. This is a kickin' idea. I'm so impressed with the contest. What fun.

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  11. This sounds like a lot of fun. Almost finished revising...almost. But I'll get a side seat in any case.

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  12. I'm so excited -- this contest sounds absolutely amazing, and really, really fun! :D

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  13. Thank you, guys, for stopping by and letting me know what you thought about this contest!! <333

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  14. What a great contest! I'm going to enter and tell all my writer friends to do the same. Thanks so much for offering opportunities like this. Also, I tagged you on my blog for the 7-7-7 challenge!

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  15. ugh, i SO want to enter! i'm still in the brainstorming stages, though--can't wait to see who wins :)

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  16. This sounds like a really great oppourtunity to get our work in front of agents who might actually get to read it (as opposed to simply black holing it:)).
    I'm definately going to try and get into the contest... suddenly seventy-five sounds like a small number :(.

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  17. Can't freaking wait!!!!

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  18. This contests sounds like all kinds of awesome, and I wish I could enter, but the beastly ms is not ready. Maybe next time!

    PS - glad you're back in the blogosphere!

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  19. Wow! That looks like a great contest! I'll pass the word on to a few of my friends who are looking for agents.

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  20. OMG!!! Why am I never ready with a completed, polished novel when you have one of your awesome contests?!? Whaaaa!!!!!

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  21. Awesome contest, thanks for running it.

    I hope I can make one of the time windows. My wife is expecting on the second.

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  22. Third. She's due on the second of May.

    Thanks for stopping by my blog.

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    Replies
    1. Once bitten, twice shy, third time a charm, fourth forever...

      The last cliché is my own, and a reflection of my fate - my wicked wife put paid to my escapades and had herself... how can I say this politely? Surgically adjusted? :)

      Since your wife was due today, I hope it went well and you are now a proud third timer.

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