"The Writer's Voice" Details

“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, Monica B.W. of Love YA, 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.

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
Mollie Glick of Foundry Literary + Media
Christa Heschke of McIntosh & Otis

Holly McGhee and Elena Mechlin of Pippin Properties

Ammi-Joan Paquette of Erin Murphy Literary Agency
John Rudolph of Dystel & Goderich Literary Management

Kate Schafer Testerman of kt literary

Suzie Townsend of New Leaf Literary & Media

Monika Verma of Levine Greenberg Literary Agency

Tina Wexler of ICM Partners

Caryn Wiseman of Andrea Brown Literary Agency

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.