Monday, April 10, 2017

Now Accepting Entries

UPDATE: And the contest is full! The entries will go up on Wednesday morning.

I'm now accepting entries for this week's round of "An Agent's Inbox." Here's a quick refresher:

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, Gabrielle Piraino* of DeFiore & Company, 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.

The Genres

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

To enter, please send an e-mail with YOUR QUERY and THE FIRST 1,250 WORDS of your manuscript to kvandolzer(at)gmail(dot)com. And please, please, please remember to PASTE THESE ITEMS IN THE BODY OF THE E-MAIL.

*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.

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