Pitch Madness … formatting and rules.

The submission window for Pitch Madness is this Monday, March 10, and will be open for 24 hours (12:01AM EST to 11:59PM EST). There will be no cut off number. Everyone who submits during the window will make it into the contest. You will receive a receipt, if you don’t, check with me here on the blog or on Twitter (@brendadrake).

For those of you not familiar with Pitch Madness, it’s a contest where agents compete in a game against their peers for pitches. This time the game is . If you haven’t been a part of a Pitch Madness challenge before, please check out this post here for more information. The submission window is open for 24 hours (12:01AM EST to 11:59PM EST) on March 10. Our slush readers will read through the pitches and pick the top 60 pitches for the agent round starting on March 18. We try to get a good mix of various genres, but the writing comes first. Basically, if the submissions aren’t ready, it’s a pass.

The agents will be playing a fun game of  for your pitches this round of Pitch Madness. Keep an eye out on the Twitter hashtag #PitchMadness for slush readers’ comments as they search for the best of the best. And on reveal day, March 20 at 12AM EST (Noon – NY time), to watch the challenge rounds between the agents go down.

Here’s the rules of submission . . .

This is for completed, unpublished fiction manuscripts (no picture books, chapter books,  non-fiction, or novellas). The categories are Adult, New Adult, Young Adult, and Middle Grade. Any genres. One manuscript per writer. The winners will not be notified before the agent round. (All submissions sent before or after the window time slot will be deleted.)

The email for submissions is brendadrakecontests@gmail.com – NO ATTACHMENTS – All pitches must be embedded in the email.

Please format your entries like this …

Email subject line: Pitch Madness: TITLE OF MANUSCRIPT

Name: Your name
Title: TITLE OF MANUSCRIPT
Genre: Category/genre of your manuscript (ie. YA Fantasy)
Word Count: Word count (round to the nearest 1000th – ie. 70,000)

Pitch: 35word (max) logline. Do not go over even one word. Single spaced. Times New Roman 12pt. No indentions.

Excerpt: The first 250 words of your manuscript. If the 250th word falls in the middle of a sentence, go to the end of that sentence. Your pitch should be Times New Roman 12pt, single spaced, one space between paragraphs, no paragraph indentions. Make sure the formatting is done correctly, but if the email transfer messes it up we will still take it.

There’s a #PitMad Twitter Pitch Party! 

And, if you don’t make it into Pitch Madness (everyone is welcome to join in) we’re holding another Twitter Pitch Party on March 25. So get your 140 word pitch ready and make sure to include the hashtag #PitMad and category (#YA, #Adult, #MG, #NA, #PB, and so on). All categories and genres welcomed. Tweet your pitch when you see an agent come on but don’t do it too obsessively. Twice an hour is a good amount. The agents will read the feed.

Phew …  that’s it.

Oh, wait. Here’s the Pitch Madness schedule again …

• Hosts and their teams Introduction on March 3
• Agent Introduction on March 4
• Rules of the Game on March 6
• Formatting Instructions March 7
• Submission window will be on March 10 and will be open for 24 hours
• The first slush round will be March 11-12
• The final round will be March 13-17
• The top 60 picks for the agent round will go up on the blogs on March 18 at 12:01AM EST (NY time)
• March 20 at 12PM EDT (Noon) the agents requests are revealed, and right afterward is the tying agents challenge round
• There will be a #PitMad Twitter Pitch Party on March 25 from 8AM to 8PM EST. Check here for rules of the Twitter Pitch Contest.

Now, that’s it for now. See you all on March 10 for submission day. Good luck, everyone!