“The Writer’s Voice” is a multi-blog, multi-agent contest
hosted by Cupid of Cupid’s
Literary Connection, Brenda Drake of Brenda Drake Writes, Krista Van Dolzer of Mother. Write. (Repeat.), and me (of Love YA, of course!). 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
1
May
2
|
Everybody
enters the Rafflecopter lottery
The
lottery winners sign up on the widget
|
May
2-10
|
We
select our team members from “The Writer’s Voice” Blogfest
|
May
10-20
|
We
coach our team members, helping them polish their entries
|
May
20
|
We
post our team members’ entries on our blogs
|
May
23-24
|
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*:
YA fiction (all subgenres)
MG fiction (all subgenres)
To determine who gets to participate in the
blogfest, we’ll hold a single-entry Rafflecopter lottery on Wednesday, May 1.
Last year, we were overwhelmed by the response, and in many instances, whoever
had the fastest fingers--or the fastest Internet connections--made it in. This
way, everyone will get an equal chance to participate.
The lottery will remain open for 12 hours on May 1, from 9:00
a.m. EDT to 9:00 p.m. EDT, at which point the Rafflecopter will select 150
random winners. Those winners will then sign up for the blogfest on one of
Mister Linky’s Magical Widgets the next day, May 2. Once you sign up on the
widget, you’ll post YOUR QUERY and THE FIRST 250 WORDS of your manuscript on
your blog.
In summary, you must follow these three steps to
enter:
1. Enter the Rafflecopter lottery on May 1
during the submission window listed above.
2. Sign up on the widget on May 2 if you win the lottery.
3. Post your query and the first 250 words of
your manuscript on your blog.
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 and 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 8 team members (plus 1
alternate) by May 10, then spend the next week and a half 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 20, we’ll post our team members’ queries
and first pages on our blogs so that the agents can review them. Here are the
awesome agents who’ll be voting on your entries:
Sarah Davies of Greenhouse Literary Agency
Catherine Drayton of InkWell Management
The agents will vote for their favorites on May
23 and 24. 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 until 9:00 p.m. EDT on May
24, 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. These votes represent serious interest in your project, so PLEASE DON’T ACCEPT
AN OFFER OF REPRESENTATION BEFORE GIVING “THE WRITER’S VOICE” AGENTS AN
OPPORTUNITY TO MAKE A COMPETING OFFER.
So get those queries and first pages polished
up, then meet us back here on Wednesday, May 1, between 9:00 a.m. and 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.)
*We’re
very sorry not to include any adult genres this year. We have to base the
genres on the agents’ interests, and this year, all the agents who said yes
happen to be agents who represent primarily YA and MG projects. There is a
chance that a few more agents will sign up between now and May 1, and if a
significant portion of those agents consider adult projects, we’ll certainly
add some adult genres. But for now, we’ll stick with this.
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