Pitch Madness 2016 . . . Formatting and Submission Rules

 Get ready to race!

The submission window for Pitch Madness is this Friday, February 26th, and will be open for 24 hours (12:01AM EST to MIDNIGHT EST). There will be no limit to the number of submissions. Everyone who submits during the window will make it into the contest. You will receive a receipt by email. If you don’t, check with Brenda or Heather here on the blog or on Twitter (@brendadrake or @HeatherCashman).

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 Mario Kart. 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 MIDNIGHT EST) on February 26th. Our first round readers will read through and eliminate any pitches with poor grammar, unpolished, or unfinished work. Second round readers and Team Hosts and Co-Hosts will pick the top 60 pitches.

Fifteen pitches will be posted on each of the four blogs for the agent round starting on March 9. 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 Mario Kart for your pitches this round of Pitch Madness. Keep an eye out on the Twitter hashtag #PitchMadness for all our readers’ comments as they search for the best of the best. March 11 at 12PM EST (Noon) the agents requests are revealed, and right afterward is the tying agents challenge round. This year the agents will have 24 hours to respond to challenges (tie-breakers).

Here are 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This is for completed, unpublished fiction manuscripts (no picture books, chapter books,  non-fiction, or novellas).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 information you will need to fill out the submission form is …

Name: Your name
Title: TITLE OF MANUSCRIPT
Genre: Category/genre of your manuscript (ie. YA Fantasy)
Word Count: Word count (round up or down to the nearest 1000th – ie. 72,000)

Pitch: 35word (max) logline. Do not go over even one word.

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 single spaced, one space between paragraphs, no paragraph indentions. Make sure the formatting is done correctly, but if the submission form transfer messes it up we will still take it.

On Friday, February 26th you will come to this blog and use the form on the Pitch Madness 2016 Mario Kart Edition Submission post and enter in the above information in the appropriate places indicated on the form.

And, if you don’t make it into Pitch Madness . . .

There’s a #PitMad Twitter Pitch Party! 

There will be a #PitMad Twitter Pitch Party on March 17 from 8AM to 8PM EST. Check here for rules of the Twitter Pitch Contest.

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. The rules for tweets have changed, so be sure and read the #PitMad page for details. The agents will read the feed.

And just so you know the Pitch Madness schedule again …

• Submission window on February 26 and will be open for 24 hours
• The top 60 picks for the agent round will go up on the blogs on March 9 at 12:01AM EST (NY time)
• March 11 at 12PM EST (Noon) the agents requests are revealed, and right afterward is the tying agents challenge round. This year the agents will have 24 hours to respond to challenges (tie-breakers)
• There will be a #PitMad Twitter Pitch Party on March 17 from 8AM to 8PM EST. Check here for rules of the Twitter Pitch Contest.