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What was Pitch Wars?
Was it another contest? Oh, no, it was so much better.
Pitch Wars was a volunteer-run mentoring program where published/agented authors, editors, or industry interns chose one writer each to mentor our a month to three months period depending on the year. Mentors read the entire manuscript and offered suggestions on how to make the manuscript shine for the agent showcase at the end of the mentoring period. The mentor also helped edit their mentee’s pitch for the contest and their query letter for submitting to agents. Some mentors participated as solo mentors while others paired up with a co-mentor.
During the agent showcase, each mentee was featured on a post that included their pitch and the first page of their manuscript. Our final year, we had nearly 200 agents participate in the showcase. Participating agents viewed the posts and made requests to read more of the entries that piqued their interest.
Over the ten years it was active, Pitch Wars changed many lives. Countless authors were matched with agents and even went on to book deals and successful careers. We’re were nearing 600 successes by its end. But most importantly, Pitch Wars was pivotal with connecting writers to writers and other professionals in the writing community, creating an atmosphere of camaraderie as we went through all stages of revision and publishing.
This archive of the Pitch Wars Blog stands as a historical record, capturing the ten years during which our program offered extensive support and services to the writing community.