Tuesday, April 17, 2012

May's "The Writer's Voice" Contest Info




“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 Krista Van Dolzer of Mother. Write. (Repeat.). 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 3
Everyone submits their entries
May 3-10
We select our team members from “The Writer’s Voice” Blogfest
May 10-17
We coach our team members, helping them polish their entries
May 17
We post our team members’ entries on our blogs
May 21
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:

Adult Fantasy
Adult Science Fiction
Adult Romance
YA fiction (all subgenres)
MG fiction (all subgenres)

(YES, EVEN IF YOU'VE ENTERED A PREVIOUS CONTEST, YOU CAN ENTER THIS ONE)

We’ll accept entries in two time slots. The first submission window will open at 9:00 a.m. EDT on Thursday, May 3, and will close once we receive 75 entries. The second submission window will open at 9:00 p.m. EDT on the same day and will close once we receive another 75 entries.

We’ll accept submissions via one of Mister Linky’s Magical Widgets, which we’ll post on all four of our blogs on May 3. Once you sign up for the blogfest, you’ll post YOUR QUERY and THE FIRST 250 WORDS of your manuscript on your blog. Then you’ll send your query, first 250 words, and A LINK TO YOUR BLOG POST in the body of an e-mail to TheWritersVoiceContest(at)gmail(dot)com, with your blogfest number, title, and genre in the subject line.

In summary, you must follow these three steps to enter:

1. Sign up for the blogfest during one of the submission windows listed above.
2. Post your query and the first 250 words of your manuscript on your blog.
3. Send your query, first 250 words, and a link to your blog post to TheWritersVoiceContest(at)gmail(dot)com, with your blogfest number, title, and genre in the subject line.

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 by e-mail, but when we find one we want, we’ll 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 10 team members by May 10, then spend the next week 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 17, we’ll post our team members’ queries and first pages on our blogs so that the agents can review them. Here are the 8 awesome agents who’ll be voting on your entries:

Louise Fury of L. Perkins Agency
Susan Hawk of The Bent Agency
Tricia Lawrence of Erin Murphy Literary Agency
Kevan Lyon of Marsal Lyon Literary Agency
Lauren MacLeod of The Strothman Agency
Taylor Martindale of Full Circle Literary
Andrea Somberg of Harvey Klinger, Inc.
Roseanne Wells of Marianne Strong Literary Agency

The agents will vote for their favorites on May 21. 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 for twenty-four hours, 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.

So get those queries and first pages polished up, then meet us back here on Thursday, May 3, at either 9:00 a.m. or 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.)

46 comments:

  1. Oh my goodness this sounds like so much fun!!! I can't wait to enter!

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  2. Can you enter if your entry was selected in the Agent Invasion contest? Thanks:)

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    1. Even if you had requests from agents, but obviously haven't heard back from them yet?

      I love you, Cupid. You complete me:) LOL

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  3. Wow! This looks like a lot of fun. You come up with the most original contest ideas. I can't wait!

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    1. The idea actually started with Krista! Then we all pounded out the details. It's gonna be a blast!

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  4. Can you enter if your entry was in the Agent Invasion contest but did not get any request?
    What if you want to enter another project?

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  5. This sounds like a truckload of fun, Cupid! Nice work!

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  6. Sweet! I should be ready to go for this one. Glad my genre is included. ;)

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  7. So only once we've been selected (received a confirmation that we were one of the 75 from either window) THEN we post our query, 250 on our blog?

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  8. VERY awesome! What a great opportunity! Thanks!

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  9. This sounds like SO much fun! Yay for creative contests!

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  10. Hey Cupid,

    I'm a tad confused on how the widget will work. What will we have to submit if we have to send our first 250 and query via email?

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  11. So let me get this straight: we have to sign up using the widget, then post the entry on our blog, before we send out the email.

    I've a feeling that's probably me out, the linkywidget can decide not to like me when there's not a timeframe at stake, but eh ...

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  12. INFORMATION: If you sign up on the Mr. Linky and are one of the first 75 or second 75 then you will post your work on your blog and send us the email shortly after.

    The Mr. Linky asks for your name and the link to your blog. And can be used by the public who wants to blog hop and read the entries and see what's going on on each writer's blog. YOU WILL NOT BE SENT A CONFIRMATION. Your entry number is your confirmation if it's within the allowed limit.

    The emails you send us are what we will read to select our 10 each. Then we will use your blogfest entry number included in your email to use the Mr. Linky to go to your blog and tell you we want you on our team.

    Then it goes on from there.

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  13. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  14. Another great idea, Cupid. Good luck to all entrants.
    Hoping June's contest (?) includes Women's Fic. :'(
    Can't wait to read "The Writer's Voice" entries!!!

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  15. Ok, so if more than one of you wants the same entry on their "team", how do you decide? Does the entrant get to pick their coach like on the show?

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  16. So are we supposed to have our own blog site? How can we get one? I am new to this, but I finished my book last summer and have been editing and revising it since.

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    1. Try going to blogger.com to sign up. Or you can choose another one.

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  17. If we don't want to put our names, can we use our pen names? (Such as SC_Author?)

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  18. I just hope I can get in there before 75 others are recieved! Good luck to all!

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    1. Same here. If it was as wild as last time, we'll all need a dose of that luck.

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  19. As to the first 250 words, am I correct to assume that we round up to the end of a sentence? Rather than cutting it short and ending up with an entry under 250 words, I mean.

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    1. I usually say 250ish. Don't cut your sentence off.

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  20. Hey Cupid, I was wondering, if two judges pick the same person and they get to pick, how are they going to make a good decision for who should be their coach? I've been looking around the websites, and there's not a lot of information to go off of. Are you guys going to post a blurb about your interests and who does what kind of genres and what areas you feel you're really qualified to help with? Also critique style can be such a big deal. I've gotten good critiques that made me want to hide under a rock, but I've also gotten critiques that made me want to take my crit partner out for beers. So that might be nice to know too. Of course, I understand that this is for a contest and not like actually picking an agent, so I understand if the answer is: We're awesome and you might want to flip a coin because the difference between two coaches isn't going to be that big. Just curious...

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    1. I guess we'll really just have to see how you feel. They may leave a comment on your blog you really like or something. You'll just have to go with your gut. :)

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  21. How fun! Hopefully I'll be ready for your next contest. ;)

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  22. Should the link we post to Mr. Linky be our main blog page, or a direct link to the actual post containing our entry? If it's the second, I suppose it would be best to have that stuff up on the blogs before May 3.

    I can't wait to read another round of fantastic entries (with fingers crossed that one of them is mine!)

    Thanks!

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    1. Just the main blog should be fine! Whatever you want to do!

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  23. Cupid! Amazing contest. Been waiting for this one for awhile. :D

    This is probably me being dense, but if there is a Mr. Linky on EACH of your blogs, is that 75 entries times 4, or does the Mr. Linky somehow sync up to allow only 75 across all 4 blogs?

    And so, we just need to choose one of the blogs and have the fastest fingers at the beginning of the window on any one of your blogs?

    Thanks for helping a girl out. :)

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    1. It's supposed to sync up for all four blogs. So people can choose which blog they want to go to, to try to sign up.

      Good question. :)

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  24. Just a question about the query letter. Should it be written as an actual email query to an agent, with a salutation, bio info and a closing/signature? Thanks!

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    1. Good question.

      No, we just want the meat of your query. This isn't an actual letter being sent to an agent's inbox. It's a contest entry. So none of that extra (but very polite) stuff is needed. :)

      And we've decided that we're not including credentials either. Just FYI.

      Thanks guys!

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    2. Meaning, you don't need my salutation, my publication credits or my contact info?

      I'm curious, especially about contact info, because I'd rather not post my home address and phone number on my blog!

      Thanks, Cupid. I'm excited about the contest!

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  25. Does it matter what kind of blog we have? Is a tumblr blog okay?

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  26. Member personals site www.luvfree.com from Pittsburgh with nickname BoredAF wrote, that Looking at the big picture. I like to analyze and typically play the devils advocate, because you never know what someone's story is.
    I'm funny, but not like comedian funny. More like witty, keep you on your toes funny. I can handle a fair amount of sarcasm.
    Being down to earth. Life is crazy busy for everyone. I'm pretty low-key, definitely not a Type - A personality.

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