Thursday, April 6, 2017

"An Agent's Inbox" Contest Alert

THIS IS NOT A CALL FOR ENTRIES! I'M JUST GIVING YOU A HEADS-UP. THE CONTEST OPENS NEXT MONDAY, APRIL 10.

Holy cow! Back-to-back rounds of "An Agent's Inbox"? I must be spoiling you guys:)

“An Agent's Inbox” is exactly what it sounds like--next week, I'm turning the blog into an agent's inbox, a public one. We'll get to see 15 queries along with their first FIVE pages, and we'll get to hear what a bona fide agent thinks of each one.

The queries and first FIVE pages will be yours, of course. I'll accept your entries this Monday, April 10, and then I'll post them next Wednesday, April 12. The entrants and anyone else who wishes to review them may comment until the following Monday or Tuesday, April 17 or 18, when I'll announce the winners.

Those winners will be chosen by The Agent, and this month, The Agent is Gabrielle Piraino* of DeFiore & Company!

The Rules


1. 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 genres The Agent represents (which are listed at the bottom of this post).

2. IF YOU PARTICIPATED IN MARCH'S ROUND OF “AN AGENT’S INBOX,” please DO NOT participate in this one UNLESS YOUR HAVE A NEW MANUSCRIPT that meets the criteria listed above. If the entry slots don’t fill up by Tuesday, April 11, I may allow previous participants to enter.

3. All entries must include A QUERY and THE FIRST 1,250 WORDS of your manuscript. Please note that this word count is different than usual! You must paste these items IN THE BODY OF YOUR E-MAIL; otherwise, I'll disqualify it.

4. THE ENTRY WINDOW OPENS AT 11:00 A.M. EDT (OR 8:00 A.M. PDT). Once the entry window opens, I'll accept the first 15 entries. I won't accept any entries sent before the entry window opens or after the first 15 slots fill up.

5. If your entry makes it in, I'll send you a confirmation e-mail with a post number. If your entry doesn't make it in, I'll still send you an e-mail, but it won't have a post number.

6. If your entry makes it in, YOU MUST COMMENT ON AT LEAST 3 OTHER ENTRIES.

The Prizes The Agent will select both the winners and the prizes. The Agent might pick 15 winners, or she might only pick one. The Agent might offer full requests, or she might only ask to see another page. It all depends on how good the entries are.

Please keep in mind that THIS CONTEST ISN'T FOR THE FAINT OF HEART. I've encouraged The Agent to treat the entries exactly as she would a normal batch of queries. Essentially, The Agent will be answering the question, "How much of the entry did you read, and if you didn't read it all, why did you stop?" I think this process will be instructive for all of us, but if you enter, you need to be prepared to hear exactly what The Agent thinks of your query and first FIVE pages.

So get those queries and first FIVE pages polished up, then meet us back here on Monday, April 10, at 11:00 a.m. EDT! At that time, you may send your entries to kvandolzer(at)gmail(dot)com. Looking forward to it!

The Genres

YA Science Fiction
YA Fantasy
YA Thriller
YA Horror
Adult Science Fiction
Adult Fantasy
Adult Thriller
Adult Horror

And of course, if you have any questions, feel free to leave them in the comments below!

*I know this probably goes without saying, but if you’re thinking about entering, you should probably treat this round a little differently than you would if you didn’t already know The Agent’s identity. Feel free to do a little research and include personalization in your queries. Also, if you've already queried Ms. Piraino, PLEASE DON'T ENTER UNLESS YOU HAVE A NEW MANUSCRIPT THAT MEETS THE CRITERIA LISTED ABOVE. Since I don't have access to Ms. Piraino's inbox, I can't really police this, but you--and she--are going to get a lot more out of this contest if you enter something The Agent hasn’t seen before.

2 comments:

PhineasFoxx said...

Hey K
Re: the Agent's Inbox...who does one email the Query and five pages to?
Cheers,
V

Krista Van Dolzer said...

To me! The e-mail address is kvandolzer(at)gmail(dot)com.