Submitting to "Surprise Agent Invasion" and Info!

**UPDATED: CONTEST CLOSED TO ENTRIES! Those selected as "victims" will receive an email on Monday, March 26th!!!


Fyi: I will be donating the funds for Helping Hearts for Britta very soon. If you're interested in donating please do so soon. Thank you!*

This month's event is called "Surprise Agent Invasion" and will run from the end of March through the first half of April. I chose this timeline so I would have a couple weeks to prepare for the multi blog contest, "The Writer's Voice", which is coming up in May.

So here's the deal...

MG, YA, and Adult genres welcome. NO picture books and NO non-fiction.

There are two entry windows: TONIGHT (Monday, March 12th) @ 11:00 pm EDT (yes, that has been changed). And TOMORROW morning (Tuesday, March 13th) @ 11:00 am EDT.  Each window will be open until I receive 100 entries each. Totaling 200 entries. If your entry was included in the Bouncer round of BSD last month please do not enter this contest!! If we do not fill up the 200 slots I will open for those who participated last month. (Thank you.)

Email entries to: cupidslitconnection(at)yahoo(dot)com

PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE make sure your entry is formatted correctly. Otherwise your entry will be deleted. I am accepting your queries and first 250ish words. Formatting rules are the same as they have always been: SEE BELOW!!!!!

Confirmation emails will be sent to those who make it in shortly after entry being received.

If you make it into one of the windows your entry enters AREA 51 and goes before the CIA. The CIA consists of myself and four of the YA Confidential operatives: Copil, Cambria, Cristin, and Karen. The 200 entries will be split up between the five of us randomly and we will each choose our strongest 10 entries to go up on the blog as "victims" of our "Surprise Agent Invasion" event. Of course, the CIA and AREA 51 are very secretive and confidential so this will all take place behind closed doors and you will NOT know which CIA judge received your entry. And as you'll notice, that is only 50 entries from the 200, so make sure your work is at it's best!!

Those who make it past the CIA and become "victims" will be notified by Cupid via email. The dates of these emails and when the entries will be posted on the blog for the agent invasion will be disclosed at a later date.

When the 50 "victims" are posted they are exposed to any literary agent that decides to show up. Yes, ANY agent can stop by and make ANY requests!!!!!!!! Exciting, right? But what does this mean for you?

Well, I want to warn a couple things. This could totally flop. *nervous laughter* I don't think it will, but it could. I will be notifying agents, but that doesn't mean they have to show up. Also, as I said, this means your work will be open to be seen by ANY agent. Even agents you don't know are looking might be reading your entry and rejecting it without your knowledge. Please decide if you can live with this before entering the contest. ENTER AT YOUR OWN RISK. 

The agents who want to make requests will do so in the comment section of that entry with instructions on how to submit. As you can tell, this event won't be so much a competition with the agents since they can request on anything, even those entries already requested on. But the surprise part should be good!

The entries will be up on the blog for 3 weeks! But if an entry gets a request, that request can be sent in immediately. You do not have to wait until the end of the event to send in materials.

FORMATTING your entries: (VERY IMPORTANT!)

When you submit your entry please make it very simple:

No tabs or double spacing. I want it email style. Single spaced. One space between paragraphs. No tabs!

Just the meat of your material. No "Dear so and so", or "I chose you because..." Just the meat of the query and first 250. You may add your credentials at the END of your query--not entry, query. 

Your entry will be like this: (Yes, bolded where bolded)

Title: NAME OF YOUR BOOK

Genre: Genre of your book

Word Count: Word count of your book

Query:

Your query formatted correctly. (per above guidelines)

First 250:

Your first 250 formatted correctly. (per above guidelines)

*Look at February's entries for further example.*

AND!!!!!! SUBJECT of your email should be: TITLE - Your Name

THANK YOU!!!!! for following these specific guidelines. Makes me a very happy Cupid. 

Good luck!!!!!!!!!!!