Krista Van Dolzer: September 2023

Wednesday, September 20, 2023

#PitchMe Finalists 2023

Please note that we had several entries with very similar titles, so definitely make sure your title AND initials match before you get too excited:

A.N.W.'s ECHO CAVE

K.M.'s SPACE KNIFE: THE TRUE STORY OF KING TUT'S DAGGER

E.E.'s THE COPPER-COLORED MITTENS

M.T.'s EILEEN COLLINS: DETERMINED, FOCUSED, FIERCE - NASA'S FIRST FEMALE PILOT & MISSION COMMANDER

S.G.'s THE BOY OF THE CINNAMON ISLAND

M.S.'s WREN'S FRIENDS

N.G.'s THE LOCKDOWN RULE

C.L.'s TANGLED UP (contemporary)

M.B.'s WHAT LINGERS AT THE CRESCENT (horror)

E.M.'s THE SORCERER OF WESTMINSTER (historical fantasy)

R.B.'s NIGHT BECOMES NOON (contemporary)

T.B.'s THE ODD ONES (fantasy)

M.A.'s THE MARITIME DETECTIVE COMPANY: THE CURSE OF THE MERMAID'S PEARL (mystery)

J.K.'s THE PECULIAR BLOOMS OF POSEY AVENUE (magical realism graphic novel)

M.D.'s HOW NOT TO DIE IN A SWAMP (horror)

B.R.'s A GOOD NIGHT TO SAY GOODBYE (historical mystery)

A.L.R.'s DEEP ROOTS (contemporary)

O.S.'s TERRA (fantasy)

M.R.'s MURDERLAND (thriller)

J.D.M.'s SECRETS DON'T STAY BURIED (thriller)

R.B.'s LAWNMOWER LEAVING (contemporary)

N.M.'s THE AMULET OF AMUN (historical adventure)

Adult

F.T.'s THE SELF-DESTRUCTION OF SYMPATHY D (speculative)

R.J.'s A LITTLE OVER THE TOP (contemporary romance)

L.F.'s BYSTANDER (thriller)

S.L.'s THE LOST DIARIES (Gothic mystery)

J.K.'s BETWEEN BREATHS (historical women's fiction)

D.L.'s THE DREAMS THEY CARRY (magical realism)

S.S.'s THE IMPERFECT STORMS (women's fiction)

S.P.'s HEIST RACE (thriller)

Congratulations, finalists! Tara and I can't wait to dig in and ultimately share these awesome projects with our agents and editors.

On the other hand, I know that this news comes as a huge letdown to the majority of you. I wish one writer's acceptance didn't always have to equal another writer's rejection, but in most cases, it does (and in most cases, I've been on the raw end of that equation, so I know how much it hurts). To try to mitigate the sting, I'm once again offering feedback to everyone who entered #PitchMe. I took notes on every entry and wrote down something positive about every single one (and usually a suggestion, too). If you don't find an agent between now and October 26 and would like to hear my thoughts on your pitch, query, and first page, you're more than welcome to respond to your original submission with a request for that feedback. I only ask that you hold off until Thursday, October 26, the day AFTER the agent round, so I can spend these next few weeks reviewing the finalists' work.

Tuesday, September 19, 2023

A Couple of Notes on This Year's #PitchMe Entries

First off, thank you, thank you, thank you for submitting to #PitchMe. This contest doesn't work if we don't get a hefty batch of super promising submissions, and once again, you guys delivered. We've finalized most of our picks, but this year's entries were so great that we're still dilly-dallying over the last couple of slots.

Overall Impressions

Maybe it's because I've gotten used to reading queries, but so many of the little things that stuck out to me last year didn't stick out to me this one. I didn't notice or care how you spelled my name (or didn't), whether you admitted you're a first-time novelist, or even how you closed your query. I scanned for title, word count, category, and genre, then dove straight into the summary. If the author's bio paragraph connected their lived experience to their book's subject matter, that was certainly a plus, but if a query happened to skip over that pesky bio paragraph, I honestly might not have noticed. The story itself was king.
Established, best-selling authors can write anything they want, and publishers will throw money at it, but break-in stories have to clear a much, much, much, much higher bar. Write what you love, they say, and let your passion sell itself, but a part of me wonders how much experience such authors have with not selling anything. If you've been at this for a while, if agents and editors compliment your writing but never give you the time of day, it may be because your concepts aren't standing out.

PB Notes

There were 84 submissions within this category.
My #PitchMe spreadsheet has two columns for note-taking on each entry: "Pros" and "Cons." Too often, I found myself typing "Good query" under "Pros" and "Concept may not stand out enough" under "Cons." It's clear that so many of you are seasoned writers who've learned how to craft pitch-perfect queries and even manuscripts, but if agents have seen your concept over and over again, it may not matter how strong your query or even your manuscript is. Tara agreed. She pointed out that several of these entries were exceptionally well-written--but about a dog or cat.
On the whole, Tara thought these entries were really, really strong. In more than one case, she decided not to pick an entry simply because she didn't think it needed #PitchMe's help.
She--and I--also shied away from rhyming picture books because they're hard to critique and really have to be pitch-perfect to catch an agent's eye. If the verse is on, it's ON, but if the meter is off by even a single syllable, the whole thing kind of falls apart.

MG Notes

There were 44 submissions within this category.
And more than half of them--28, to be precise--were some kind of fantasy. Throw in the horrors with fantastical elements, and the number would be well over 30. Nothing wrong with fantasy, of course, and I loved some of these entries, but MG in general and MG fantasy in particular has become quite tricky to sell, so your project really has to go above and beyond.
Maybe it's just the time of year, but I also came across enough ghost stories in these entries that I started to take note. Here again, some of these ghost stories were my very favorite entries, but it also made me wonder if our agents might be experiencing ghost-story fatigue.
Lastly, multiple stories started on the first or last day of school, so those first pages had to work even harder to stand out.

YA Notes

There were 49 submissions within this category.
And quite a few of them were also fantasies. That said, there weren't nearly as many, but there were certainly enough to make me jot down a note.

Adult Notes

There were 84 submissions within this category.
And on the whole, I'd say that the adult submissions featured a better mix of genres. That said, experience has taught me that my fantasy and sci-fi tastes don't match up very well with what agents are looking for--which has everything to do with me and absolutely nothing to do with the amazing fantasy and sci-fi authors #PitchMe has featured in the past--so those ones really had to wow me to make it onto my longlist.

You may have done the math yourself, but of the 14 awesome agents and 5 lurking editors who will be checking in on #PitchMe, 6 will be looking for PB, 13 for MG, 13 for YA, and 11 for adult.

Please meet me back here tomorrow for the list of finalists!

Wednesday, September 6, 2023

Second Submission Window for #PitchMe 2023 Now Open

UPDATE: The submission windows are now closed. We received 84 PBs, 44 MGs, 49 YAs, and 84 adults for a total of 261 entries. Finalists will be announced on Wednesday, September 20!

Welcome to #PitchMe 2023! To enter, your manuscript must meet two conditions. First, it must be COMPLETE, NEVER-PUBLISHED, AND READY TO QUERY, and second, it must be in one of the following genres:

PB fiction and nonfiction (all genres)

MG fiction (all genres)

YA fiction (all genres)

Adult fiction (all genres, including commercial, literary, and/or upmarket but excluding erotica)

1. All submissions must be sent to kvandolzer(at)gmail(dot)com and include A TWITTER PITCH, A QUERY, AND THE FIRST 250 WORDS of your manuscript. (PB author-illustrators are also encouraged to share links to their online portfolios.) You must paste these items IN THE BODY OF YOUR E-MAIL; otherwise, I'll disqualify it.

2. Please submit ONLY ONE PROJECT. If you submit multiple projects, I'll only consider the first.

3. It would also really help if you INCLUDE YOUR CATEGORY--PB, MG, YA, OR ADULT--SOMEWHERE IN YOUR SUBJECT LINE, but it's not a requirement.

4. THERE WILL BE TWO 30-MINUTE SUBMISSION WINDOWS to (try to) accommodate work schedules and international entrants. The first submission window opens on Wednesday, September 6, at 10:30 a.m. EDT and closes at 11:00 a.m. EDT. The second submission window opens later that same day, Wednesday, September 6, at 10:30 p.m. EDT and closes at 11:00 p.m. EDT. Hopefully, you'll be awake and/or not at work during one of these 30-minute intervals!

5. Once you send me your submission, I’ll send you a confirmation e-mail with a summary of these rules.

6. Previous finalists may enter again AS LONG AS THEY HAVE A NEW MANUSCRIPT TO SUBMIT.

For more information, including a timeline of events and a list of participating agents and editors, check out this post. We can't wait to read your work!

First Submission Window for #PitchMe 2023 Now Open

UPDATE: The first submission window is now closed, but the second will open tonight at 10:30 p.m. EDT. For your information, we've received 39 PBs, 29 MGs, 32 YAs, and 59 adults so far!