Tuesday, April 15, 2014

The Writer's Voice 2014



“The Writer’s Voice” is a multi-blog, multi-agent contest hosted by Brenda Drake, Elizabeth Briggs., Kimberly P. Chase, and me. 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.

And you know what? This year, we’re adding GUEST COACHES! One per each coach. And let me tell you, I’m really excited about this, because the lovely Stacey H. Lee will be my guest coach this year and she’ll be helping me make some of the difficult decisions!
So go ahead and stalk her now! Here’s Stacey’s Twitter account, and her website!

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 10-19
We coach our team members, helping them polish their entries
May 19
We post our team members’ entries on our blogs
May 22
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 Historical
Adult Fantasy
Adult Science Fiction
Adult Romance
YA fiction (all genres)
MG fiction (all genres)

To determine who gets to participate in the blogfest, we’ll hold a single-entry Rafflecopter lottery on Thursday, May 1. The lottery will remain open for 12 hours, 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 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 19, 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:

Mollie Glick of Foundry Literary + Media

The agents will vote for their favorites on May 22. 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 a.m. EDT on May 23, 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 Thursday, 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.)

*As you probably noticed, we’re not including any new adult genres. We have to base the genres on the agents’ interests, and most of the agents participating this year aren’t looking for NA at the moment.

** Thanks to @Chris_and_Holly for designing this year's The Writer's Voice badge!

10 comments:

  1. Thanks for the push I need to create a blog. : )

    -- Sarah Floyd

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    1. Oh, I remember I needed a push to start mine, as well! Good luck! :)

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  2. If we win the lottery and then get an offer (or if we even make it as far as being selected by a coach, but before the agent round), can we pull out? I saw we're supposed to give Writer's Voice agents a chance, but I wondered if that means only if you get an offer after May 19th.

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    1. Hi, Anon,
      Right! That means if you get an offer after the 19th. If your entry goes live, and you have requests and the agents get to see your pages, you need to give The Writer's Voice agents a chance, too. Hope this answers your question?
      Best,
      M

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    2. So, in other words, yeah, you can pull out if the Writer's Voice agents haven't seen your work. :)

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  3. You are all ROCK STARS for offering this contest. It's KILLING me I don't have anything quite ready for it. I'll sit back and cheer. Miss you too. Like crazy. Come back to LA.

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    1. Awww. I WANT to go back to LA!! =D You, too, come visit me!
      XO

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  4. Mine isn't quite "polished" and I doubt I can have this revision finished in a week (if it weren't for all those papers I have to grade!), but I will be watching with interest . . .

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    1. Maybe next time!! :D Good luck with all those papers!

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  5. This comment has been removed by the author.

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