Monday, May 2, 2011

Agent Contest of Epic Awesome!

*****THIS CONTEST IS CLOSED!*****

If you would like to enter, please follow this link.

Today we're excited to announce that we're having our very first agent participant contest! Woohoo!

This Friday, May 6th at 10 AM EST, we will open up for entries in our first ever twitter pitch contest!

Meet the awesome agent who's agreed to be our first judge!
Sara Megibow of Nelson Literary Agency!

Sara is the Associate Literary Agent at Nelson Literary Agency. She's actively and enthusiastically acquiring new clients!

Nelson Literary Agency specializes in representing young adult and middle grade, science fiction and fantasy, romance (all genres except category or inspirational), commercial fiction, women's fiction (including chick lit) and high concept literary fiction.

Sara is particularly interested in "contemporary YA and MG novels - stories set in the real world, preferably with a multicultural or historical aspect." And would also "love to work on more science fiction and fantasy books." She loves "fantastical stories - especially when they are unique and beautifully written," and says "My favorite young adult reads in 2010 were ASH by Malinda Lo and THE DUFF by Kody Keplinger."

For those of you that don't write YA, Sara also likes romance books that are "super sexy and intelligent" and commercial fiction that has "a unique story and superior writing."

Some of Sara's clients and their upcoming books include:
Miranda Kenneally - SCORE (Sourcebooks, December 2011)

Allison Rushby - SHOOTING STARS

Jennifer Shaw Wolf - BREAKING BEAUTIFUL


And now for the best part, THE PRIZE. Sara has offered to review the first 30 pages of the manuscript whose pitch she liked the most!

How it works:
This contest is for COMPLETED POLISHED MANUSCRIPTS ONLY. If you wouldn't want an agent to read it yet, don't enter.

You have 140 characters to pitch your novel. NO ABBREVIATIONS. So be crafty, you have four days to come up with the perfect pitch for your book.

We will only accept entries in the genres that Sara Megibow represents. (See her bio above.)

The full rules will post when the contest officially opens. Entries will open at 10am ET Friday and close at 11:59pm ET Saturday May 7th.

In other contest news:

Maggie Stiefvater is having a GIANT FOREVER TRAILER CONTEST in which you can win awesome things like an early copy of FOREVER and an ARC of THE SCORPIO RACES (aka Secret Novel). And tons of other goodies! So go check it right now!

As always, if you have a contest you'd like to share, post the link in our Mr. Linky!

23 comments:

  1. This sounds like an amazing contest with an awesome agent that is hard to get read by! Count me in. :)

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  2. Thanks, Heather! Can't wait to read your pitch!

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  3. Great contest you guys--a real opportunity for those looking for an agent. Grats on the #'s too!

    Angela @ The Bookshelf Muse

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  4. Yay!!!!! So awesome!! I'll be entering!!

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  5. Wow! I'm so looking forward to this! I write both YA and Adult but I am currently sending out my Adult Women's Fiction novel and the minute I read "Unique story and Superior writing" I knew it was screaming my name!

    The date is penciled in!!!

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  6. Great contest! I can't wait to submit and to read everyone's submissions!

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  7. Can you clarify something for me? Does the science fiction or fantasy need to be YA?

    Thanks!

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  8. I second Angela's comment! I think I queried her once in a past lifetime before I actually bothered to learn how to query people properly. Ahem. *shifty eyes* BUT I'm sure no one entering will make that kind of mistake. :D

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  9. What fantastic opportunity for great writers to pitch their novels, and for you to grab those spectacular stories. I'm excited to read Heather's pitch! Her novels fit you like a pair of jeans that spent too much time in the dryer. Tight.
    Okay... I'm really looking forward to reading all. But what can I say... Heather has a fan club.
    Have a great day!

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  10. Charity, it's either/or. Sara has stated on Publisher's Marketplace that she "...would love to work on more science fiction and fantasy books. I love complex world building that is tightly woven with intense characters and an exciting story. I loved John Scalzi's OLD MAN'S WAR and N.K. Jemisin's THE HUNDRED THOUSAND KINGDOMS as well as everything by Robin McKinley, Carol Berg, Scott Lynch and Naomi Novik. If you want to submit an sf/f novel, I'm your woman!"

    Looking forward to all of your entries!

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  11. How great! So glad for the opportunity.

    Does the 140 characters include spaces?

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  12. CN, thanks for participating! Yes, it does include spaces and punctuation. If you can't fit it in a tweet on twitter.com, it's too long.

    We have a great post in the archives on elevator pitches here: http://www.sistersinscribe.com/2010/04/two-minute-elevator-pitch.html

    And agent Natalie Fischer made a great post on them today: http://adventuresinagentland.blogspot.com/2011/05/hook-em-in-in-three-seconds-or-less.html

    These are two links to get you started, but you do have to condense it to 140 characters or less. Good luck!

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  13. I have my Twitpitch ready! But I have to ask, does a hash tag count toward the 140? I'm assuming we'll use a hash tag to enter. If so, I have to revise...again!

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  14. Hi, Jessie! Nope, no hashtags! You'll be entering right here on this blog, not on twitter, so don't worry about that.

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  15. Sweet contest! Thanks for doing this; I'll enter for sure! :)

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  16. This is great! I'll enter, just tell me where to go please.

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  17. Hi, S! Thanks for joining us! The contest post will go up at 10am EST. One hour to go! All details and directions will be in that post. Thanks again! Good luck!

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  18. also, if we have two novels ready, are we allowed to pitch both?

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  19. Lynne, for this contest we're going to keep it to one entry per person. Thanks for asking!

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  20. just read the 'one entry per person' and deleted my second one. thanks for the info!

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