Now Accepting Entries

UPDATE: We're full! As of 1:05 p.m. EDT, I've responded to every e-mail I've received, so if you didn't get my answer, please check your spam folder.

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 EITHER OF THE PREVIOUS TWO ROUNDS 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, October 25, I may allow previous participants to enter.

3. All entries must include A QUERY and THE FIRST 250 WORDS of your manuscript/proposal. You must paste these items IN THE BODY OF YOUR E-MAIL; otherwise, I'll disqualify it.

4. THE ENTRY WINDOW OPENS AT 12:00 NOON EDT (OR 9:00 A.M. PDT). Once the entry window opens, I'll accept the first 25 entries. I won't accept any entries sent before the entry window opens or after the first 25 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 25 winners, or he or she might only pick one. The Agent might offer full requests, or he 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 he or 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 page.

The Genres

MG fiction (all genres)
YA fiction (all genres)
Adult Mystery
Nonfiction (all categories and genres)

To enter, please send an e-mail with YOUR QUERY and THE FIRST 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.

"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, OCTOBER 24.

“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 25 queries along with their first pages, and we'll get to hear what a bona fide agent thinks of each one.

The queries and first pages will be yours, of course. I'll accept your entries this Monday, October 24, and then I'll post them next Wednesday, October 26. The entrants and anyone else who wishes to review them may comment until the following Monday or Tuesday, October 31 or November 1, when I'll announce the winners.

Those winners will be chosen by The Agent, who shall remain nameless for now.

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 EITHER OF THE PREVIOUS TWO ROUNDS 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, October 25, I may allow previous participants to enter.

3. All entries must include A QUERY and THE FIRST 250 WORDS of your manuscript/proposal. You must paste these items IN THE BODY OF YOUR E-MAIL; otherwise, I'll disqualify it.

4. THE ENTRY WINDOW OPENS AT 12:00 NOON EDT (OR 9:00 A.M. PDT). Once the entry window opens, I'll accept the first 25 entries. I won't accept any entries sent before the entry window opens or after the first 25 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 25 winners, or he or she might only pick one. The Agent might offer full requests, or he 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 he or 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 page.

So get those queries and first pages polished up, then meet us back here on Monday, October 24, at 12:00 noon EDT! At that time, you may send your entries to kvandolzer(at)gmail(dot)com. Looking forward to it!

The Genres

MG fiction (all genres)
YA fiction (all genres)
Adult Mystery

Nonfiction (all categories and genres)

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

The Writer's Voice: Where Is Jessie Oliveros Now?

I'm thrilled to share this guest post with TWV 2013 alum Jessie Oliveros, who, as you're about to see, has had a busy year. Jessie's MG voice immediately caught my attention, but as it turned out, she caught her big break in another category. Read on for all the details!

Over three years ago, I posted the beginning of my middle-grade novel A Pretty Pirate Pickle for The Writer's Voice. I came away from that experience with a submission in the inbox of an excellent agent and a fine-tuned first five pages. (I also came away with a mentor-relationship with Krista who has been an amazing help these last few years!)

I would go on to query many agents with my middle grade baby. I lost count, but between contests and query letters I'm going to say 100. Eleven agents showed interest and asked for more. One even emailed me just before Christmas and said they were giving the novel a second read! (Admittedly it kind of made my Christmas a little stressful.) They came back with R&R notes for me. I revised, but ultimately they passed. It did make my manuscript stronger...glass half-full here.

Fast forward more rejections and working on other manuscripts, and I connected on Twitter with my now CP Myrna. We'd been around the same blogosphere ground for a few years, but we found we had a lot of the same writing interests and started trading work--namely picture book manuscripts. I bring Myrna into this story because she kind of helped rekindle that spark for picture book manuscripts. This put my writing brain in just the right place when I went back to Kansas two summers ago to visit my parents. I spent quite a bit of time with my grandparents during that visit. My grandpa had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's a few years back, and so this time was precious. I voice recorded their stories from their youth. I had a special interest in recording my grandpa's stories before he forgot them.

When I went home after this trip, I wrote a picture book about memory loss called The Remember Balloons. I felt like it was special. When I read it to my sister, we both cried. My sister said, "Don't change a thing!" Which was nice, but even the best-feeling manuscripts aren't perfect. (Myrna gave me some great advice to make it better.)

And so I queried. I queried this one pretty slowly. Over several months, I sent it out to about twelve agents. One even said she thought it was very sweet, but she didn't think it would sell. After that one, I thought about just keeping it for me. Maybe it wasn't a sell. Myrna told me otherwise, and so I kept it out there.

I love Twitter pitch contests, and I entered a couple last Christmas. When I entered my pitch for The Remember Balloons in Pitchmas I had a request! From Mike Hoogland of Dystel and Goderich Literary Management. I sent the manuscript off to him on a Saturday. He emailed me the following Monday and asked if I had illustrations. I told him I wasn't an author/illustrator but let him know about my other work.

Then an email on Tuesday--he wanted to know if we could talk on the phone about representation! That night my husband took our kids out while I had The Phone Call I'd only been waiting for for six years. :) Mike really believed in my manuscript, he liked the sound of my other work, and I thought we would work well together. I signed an agent-author agreement a week after Christmas.

We worked on my manuscript for a few weeks, and then we went on submission in February. We were only on submission for a couple weeks (incidentally, the day we were closing on my house and a few days before I had my baby number four) when I received an email from Mike letting me know the editor of Simon and Schuster BFYR was interested. The day after I brought my baby home from the hospital, I received an official offer. 

New house, new baby, new book...that was ten days of a lot of amazing things! My book is due out Fall 2018. In the meantime, Mike and I are editing a couple PB manuscripts and that little middle grade baby that started this journey. I now call it A High Seas Heist. So hopefully you see that one as a real-life book one day, too!

Thank you for sharing your journey with us, Jessie. Can't wait to get my hands on THE REMEMBER BALLOONS (and, with any luck, A HIGH SEAS HEIST, too)!

Winners and Thoughts

I know you're probably anxious to get to the results, so let's just get those out of the way so you don't have to scroll and scroll:

The full critique goes to Dana Edwards's HARVEY THE BEDAZZLER.

I'd also like to critique the first fifty pages of Katherine T.'s THE WITCH AND THE DEMON and Spring's UNTIL THE STARS BURN OUT.

Congratulations, winners! If you see this post before I have a chance to e-mail you, feel free to send your manuscripts as Word attachments to kvandolzer(at)gmail(dot)com. Can't wait to dig in!

On the whole, I was super impressed with these entries. If I were an agent, I would have requested sixteen out of the thirty-eight manuscripts. And those were just the ones that spoke to me. I found many more of the entries to be compelling and well-written; they just didn't quite match up with my personal tastes.

That said, there were a few things that made me raise my eyebrows. I was immediately put off by word counts that were significantly under or over anticipated values. If, for instance, a YA fantasy was under 70,000 words, I worried that the story--plot, characters, and world--wouldn't be developed enough. On the flip side, if an adult contemporary was over 90,000 words, I worried that it might be bogged down with too many superfluous words and scenes.

(It's worth noting that these word counts are by no means set in stone. Obviously, each story is going to have a right number of words in which it needs to be told, but it is a good idea to try to be in the ballpark. For a supremely helpful post that you've probably been referred to at least a million times, check out Jennifer Laughran's "Wordcount Dracula." While she only addresses children's fiction, I'd say it's fair to add 10,000 to 20,000 words to the YA numbers to arrive at average adult figures in similar genres.)

I should also add that, while I usually discount the importance of titles (probably because I'm terrible at coming up with them myself), there were several in this bunch that immediately caught my attention, including UNTIL THE STARS BURN OUT, ONE IS FOR SORROW, and LET THEM EAT CAKE. I'd argue that the title is the least important part of your query (since everyone knows that they get changed at least half of the time), but if you've got a great title, you should definitely showcase it.

Lastly, thank you, thank you, thank you for sharing your stories with me. Best of luck to you and them!

Krista's Impromptu Critique Contest

If you didn't make it into Pitch Wars, if you know your manuscript needs something but can't quite pinpoint what it is, if you just want another set of eyes looking for plot holes and inconsistencies, then this contest is for you. I'm between projects at the moment, so I have some time to critique someone's full manuscript.

If you want that manuscript to be yours, you must meet the following conditions:

1. You cannot be a 2016 Pitch Wars mentee. I want to give someone else an opportunity to receive the same kind of critique.

2. Your manuscript must be rated PG-13 or less. I'm open to virtually any category or genre as long as the content isn't overwhelming. (If in doubt, you're welcome to enter, but know that if I select your manuscript and find the content too uncomfortable, I may stop reading and only send you a partial critique.)

3. Your manuscript must be complete and ready to send by the first week in October. You're probably going to get more out of this experience if you don't send me a first draft, but since you know your process better than I do (and since I can't really police it), I'm also not going to say that you can't send me a first draft.

To enter, please leave a comment on this post that tells me something about your manuscript, its approximate word count, and an e-mail address I can reach you at. (For instance, copying and pasting the summary from your query would be perfect.) I'll leave the comments open until Friday, September 30, at 11:59 p.m. EDT, then announce a winner sometime the following week. One entry will receive a full critique, but I may offer to critique some partials if I feel so inclined.

Can't wait to find a great story to dig into!

Winners Below!

Without any ado, Ms. Johnson-Blalock's winners:

First place: #5 DROWNING IN AIR

DROWNING IN AIR wins a full request!

Second place: #13 A PLAGUE ON BOTH YOUR HOUSES

A PLAGUE ON BOTH YOUR HOUSES wins a request for the first 100 pages!

Third place: #4 THE PARIS TRIP

THE PARIS TRIP wins a request for the first 50 pages!

Fourth place: #8 IF YOU FIND ME and #20 CROSSROADS

IF YOU FIND ME and CROSSROADS win a request for the first 20 pages!

Congratulations, winners! Please e-mail me at kvandolzer(at)gmail(dot)com for details on how to submit your materials to Ms. Johnson-Blalock.

In addition, Ms. Johnson-Blalock named two honorable mentions: #9 SIGN OF THE COCOA BEANS and #10 THE EXQUISITENESS OF SEEING. In her own words, "these queries and pages were fantastic, but for wholly subjective reasons, they aren't quite right for me. But congratulations on a job well done and all my best wishes for finding the perfect agent."

Thank you, Ms. Johnson-Blalock, for your time and thoughtful critiques. And thank you, everyone else, for YOUR time and thoughtful critiques. These contests always restore my faith in humanity:)

"An Agent's Inbox" Is Live!

Check out the entries below, then leave some feedback in the comments if you feel so inclined. (ENTRANTS, PLEASE REMEMBER TO CRITIQUE AT LEAST THREE OTHER ENTRIES!) And I'm sure this goes without saying, but please keep your comments constructive (i.e., not rude or mean-spirited). If you want to think like The Agent, you might consider the question, "If you were an agent, would you request more of this entry?"

I'll announce Ms. Johnson-Blalock's winners and prizes at the beginning of next week, but until then, have at it!

(For your information, I take out profanity when I'm formatting the entries, so if you notice any asterisks, they're my asterisks, not the entrants'. Also, entrants, if you find a Krista-generated error in your post, feel free to shoot me an e-mail, and I'll correct it straightaway.)

An Agent's Inbox #22

Dear Ms. Johnson-Blalock,

After reading your page under the Liz Dawson Associates website, I was excited to learn you are interested in thrillers/mysteries, contemporary romance, and young adult. I have a manuscript that fits all three descriptions, titled OLD MAN BOONE, of roughly 75,000 words.

In OLD MAN BOONE, anything is better than living with a lying, cheating, no-good father--even living in a town with more horses than people. Still, sixteen-year-old Hailey Johnston suspects her life is over when her divorced mother moves them to Clearmont, Wyoming.

The rural town looks more promising when Josh Turner, gorgeous star athlete, asks Hailey out. He’s the guy every girl dreams of, but his ex-girlfriend is the stuff of nightmares. Once Hailey sees Josh and his ex getting cozy in the hall after school, she doubts his feelings are genuine.

The bugs in her locker and rattlesnake in her backpack have psycho written all over them, and Hailey can only assume Josh’s vindictive ex is the culprit. Things take a strange turn, however, when Hailey’s little sister claims the rumored town phantom--the ghost of Old Man Boone--is following her. When her sister wakes up screaming in the middle of the night, claiming someone is lurking outside her window, Hailey realizes the danger is real. Before Hailey can solve the dilemma, her sister disappears one stormy winter night without a trace.

To save her family, Hailey must put her doubts aside and trust Josh. Working together is the only way they will survive the snowstorm that spirited away her sister and defeat an unexpected villain.

OLD MAN BOONE was greatly influenced by my own experiences as a youth, when I moved to Clearmont. Though the plot is made up, many of the details of the town and rural society are true. I recently e-published my first novel under the penname Liz McCraine, and am preparing a second for publication later this year. While my adventures self-publishing have been invaluable, I want to follow a more traditional route with OLD MAN BOONE. Pasted below are the first 250 words of the story. The completed manuscript is available at your request.

Sincerely,
R.C.

OLD MAN BOONE

Things could only get better.

Hailey stared out the window at dull valleys overflowing with gray-green sagebrush and felt the familiar hot rush that came just before an onslaught of free-flowing tears. She swallowed, forcing down the sob threatening to burst free. It would do no good to cry. She’d already spilled a million tears, but it hadn’t changed anything.

This was hard for all of them. But whatever their troubles, they were in this together. The three of them. They had survived the upheaval of the last six months, and they could survive the next six. They were making a fresh start in a new place.

“What do you think?” Her mom, Ruth, glanced over from the driver’s seat, a hopeful expression on her too-lean face. The weight loss from everything that had happened over the last six months was evident in her hollow cheeks. The gray hairs at her temples were new, too.

Hailey knew her mom was doing her best to find the positive in a bad situation, and it was because of her example that Hailey found the strength to calm the gush of bitter emotion.

She summoned a small smile. “It looks like it could use a few more people, Mom. Maybe even people like us.”

The creases on her mom’s forehead smoothed. “Good!” She smacked the steering wheel enthusiastically. “I wholeheartedly agree. Why don’t you wake up Sarah? We’ll be at our new home in no time.” She stepped on the gas.