Pitch Madness 2015 SORRY! Edition … agent game rules & submission instructions.

The submission window for Pitch Madness SORRY! Edition is this Friday!

What is Pitch Madness? It’s a contest to win a request from one or more of the participating agents. I will have an agent introduction post up soon.

The submission window will be open from 12:01 AM EST on February 20 until 11:59PM EST on February 23. You should have plenty of time to get your submissions in. There is no limit of how many entries will be accepted. All entries sent before or after the allotted times will be deleted. Make sure to perfect your entry. If you make an error, you may not resend.

There will be 60 finalists moving onto the agent round. Pitch Madness will accept Middle Grade, Young Adult, New Adult, and Adult (never before published) fiction only, novel length (no novellas) completed and polished manuscripts only. All genres (i.e. fantasy, contemporary, sci-fi, and so on) are welcome to enter. This time around we will not accept non-fiction. Only one entry per writer.

What do you need to enter? A 35-word (max) pitch and the first 250 words of your finished manuscript. If the 250th word falls in the middle of a sentence, go to the end of the sentence. There will be a form on the submission post on Brenda Drake’s blog for you to fill out and submit your entry. Please enter only once. You will not get an email receipt. Look for the notice after you submit that says it was received.

Pitch Madness will be on four blogs and each blog host will have a co-host helping them choose their top 15 entries. We’ll have a team of first readers who will check for formatting, grammar, and content and put their top picks through to the hosts.

To meet the readers and the teams go to this post here.

Here are the host blogs …

Brenda Drake’s blog

Rebecca Coffindaffer’s blog

Summer Heacock’s blog

Sharon Johnston’s blog

All the twitter fun will happen on the hashtag #PitchMadness!

The agents will be playing a game to win their top requests and have some time alone with them before they’re sent to the other requesting agents. To meet our agents go to this post here.

Here are the rules of the SORRY! game the agents will play …

First Round – March 2-3 (Midnight to Midnight EST)

Starting on March 2 just after Midnight EST and until the end of March 3 the agents will visit the host blogs, read the entries, and enter their moves (requests) for the pitches they want. The comments will be on moderate so that agents won’t see what the other agents are requesting. Highest move “request” wins.

Here are the moves (requests) that can be made for the first round:

• To place a partial request: Agents move their “pawn” the number of spaces they want to request. (Example: I move my pawn 1 space = 1 chapter). Agents can move their pawns up to 12 paces. Each partial will include the query. The agents don’t have any restrictions other than they can’t request more than 12 chapters or less than one chapter.*
• To place a full request: Agents move their “pawn” home. (Example: I move my pawn home = full request. Each full request will include the query.)*
• Highest request wins the play and an entry into the drawing referenced below.

*Only one request per agent for each pitch during the first round.

Second Round – March 4 at 12PM (Noon) EST

If there are ties (same winning request), then the competing agents go into the challenge round. Each player (agent) will be asked to play a SORRY! card in the comments of the tying entry’s post. The first to post “SORRY!” wins the full request.

We will announce all tying requests on the Twitter hashtag #PitchMadness. When both agents announce on Twitter that they are available for the challenge, we’ll tweet for them to go to the entry’s post and play their SORRY! card in the comments of that post. There will be three tweets counting down to “Go.” First to post wins. If an agent can’t be there for the challenge round, they can appoint someone to make their plays for them or we can find someone to do it. Just let us know ahead of time.

Wait. There’s more! To show our appreciation, the agents aren’t only competing for requests, but for gift cards, too! We figured that it’s a lot of work playing a game, so we decided to reward the winners as an extra incentive and bragging rights. The winning agent, grand  ruler of the slush pile will receive a $50 gift card from either Amazon or Barnes & Noble (winners choice) with two runners-up receiving $25 gift cards. There will be a drawing for the winners of the gift cards. Just for participating the agents automatically get an entry into the drawing. For each win, the agents get another entry into the drawing.

Please note: All requests will be honored, just the winning agents get a head start and an entry into the drawing.

On March 11 from 8AM to 8PM EST we’re holding a Twitter Pitch Party on #PitMad as a sort of consolation prize for those who entered the contest and didn’t make it in. It’s open to all writers with a completed manuscript.