Twitter Pitch Contests: The Basics

If you follow people in the writing community on Twitter, you may have noticed some of them participating in Twitter pitch contests. These are organized a few times a year and are an opportunity to pitch your work to agents and editors (some of whom are closed to queries, so you might not be able to pitch them another way!).

Twitter pitching can seem intimidating at first. Once you get the hang of it, though, it can fun and beneficial—just ask the writers who've signed with agents or publishers thanks to a well-crafted tweet.

Here are six basic rules for Twitter contests.

1. Take the time to craft your pitches.
Don't make the mistake of thinking that because the pitches are short, they'll be quick and easy to dash off. In fact, it can be much harder to come up with 140-character pitches for your book than longer ones. You'll usually want to come up with a number of different pitches, too, since Twitter doesn't allow you to tweet the same thing twice (and you'll want to try out different angles to see which ones get more bites).

Here are some good resources to help you write your pitches:
Dan Koboldt's Brief Guide to Twitter Pitching
Literary agent Carly Watters' Guide to Twitter Pitch Contests
How to Win a Twitter Pitch Contest from Writer Unboxed

2. Follow the rules.
Each Twitter pitch contest is hosted by someone, and they'll have a post up with the rules for that particular contest. This is where you'll find out things like how many pitches you can do total, how often you can pitch, and what types of manuscripts are included in the contest.

Don't be the jerk who thinks they're above the rules. People who pitch too often get noticed by contest organizers and industry professionals—and not in a good way.

3. Use the hashtag(s).
Every Twitter pitch contest will have a unique hashtag that marks the pitches as part of the contest. These will generally be short to give you as much room for your actual pitch as possible. Some examples include #pitmad (Pitch Madness), #WVTP (Writer's Voice Twitter Pitch), and #DVPit (Diverse Pitch, designed to showcase work that's about and/or by marginalized voices).

You can also use additional hashtags, like #YA for young adult, #SF for sci-fi, #R for romance, etc. These can help agents and editors filter the contest feed. Don't get carried away, though—you need to leave room for the specifics of your pitch.

4. Support others.
One of the best things about these kind of contests is finding pitches that sound intriguing and connecting with other writers. If you see pitches you like, most contests allow retweeting or quoting those pitches to increase their visibility. An important note: don't favorite pitches you like, because this is normally the way agents and editors indicate their interest. It's a terrible letdown to see that favorite notification and then realize it's just a fellow contest participant.

5. Do your homework.
You're not under any obligation to submit your work to anyone who favorites your pitch. Take the time to research agents and editors who request. If you see red flags, trust your gut.

6. Don't take it too seriously.
Twitter contests can be a lot of fun, but they're just one more way to get eyes on your pitch. Even if you don't get requests, you can still query the agents who participated in the contest. It's often a lot easier to hook someone's interest with a full query than a one or two line pitch.

Lessons From the Pitch Madness Slush

Last week, I had the privilege of assisting two hosts of Pitch Madness with their slush reading. (If you're not familiar with Pitch Madness, it's a blog-hosted contest where writers compete to get requests from agents to read their material. Find more information about this year's contest here.)

If you've been reading this blog for a while, you probably know I'm a big fan of online writing contests. In fact, that's how I got my agent! I've entered quite a few of them over the past few years, but this was the first time I got to see the process from the other side.

Holy crap is it different.

First, let me say that the writers who run these writing contests are saints. I had no idea how much time and energy went into making sure people followed the submission guidelines, following up on missing information, poring over agent wishlists, and reading hundreds of pitches. I was honestly shocked at how much work these hosts are doing, just out of the goodness of their hearts and desire to see other writers succeed.

Without further ado, here are the two main things I learned from reading through hundreds of entries.

1. Short pitches are really, really difficult.
The pitch required for this contest could only be 35 words, maximum. I saw so many entries that tried to cram too much information into this short format, only to end up with a confusing, convoluted pitch. There were more than a few entries that honestly made no sense at all.

Lesson to be learned here: if you're writing a short pitch, keep it as simple as possible. Don't try to mention subplots, minor characters, or overall themes. A tried-and-true approach is this general format: When INCITING INCIDENT happens to MAIN CHARACTER, he/she must OVERCOME CONFLICT by COMPLETING QUEST. (Paraphrased from former literary agent Nathan Bransford--check out his blog for tons of other great query/writing tips.)

2. The first line of your manuscript should be great. It should also set the tone for the rest of the book.
There were lots of pitches that sounded like one type of book (serious high fantasy, for example), but the first line would be something flippant that sounded like it belonged in a women's fiction book.

The first line of your manuscript should be worked over until it's perfect. I had heard that some agents quit reading if they didn't like the first sentence, and I found myself doing the same thing a few times. If that sentence has clunky writing, mechanics errors, or is confusing, you're running the risk that your reader will stop right there.

Conversely, there were some stellar first sentences that made me take a second look at entries where the pitch wasn't as good. My favorites were witty, or infused so much of the main character's voice into just one sentence that I was compelled to keep reading.


For a far more comprehensive wrap-up from another Pitch Madness slush reader, check out LL McKinney's post on the Cue My Muse blog. She delves into the most common errors she saw in both the pitches and the first 250 words and includes some excellent tips.

October Contests & New Blog Schedule

New Post Schedule

Some of you may have noticed some changes to our blog schedule.  Mondays will now rotate between the Industry Month in Review, Writers Resource, Villain of the Month, and the YA Book Pick of the month.  Wednesdays Lauren, Jenn, Triona and myself will wax poetically about writing, life and everything in between.

Hope you enjoy!
  

October Contests 

I'm just starting to come down from my GUTGAA high (thank you to Deana Barnhart for hosting and organizing!) There were soooo many amazing entries - I don't know how the judges and agents picked.  (a special congrats to our very own Triona who got THREE requests from the agent portion of the contest!)

Congrats to everyone who participated in GUTGAA, and best of luck to those who have moved onto the Small Press Pitch contest - my fingers and toes are crossed for you!

If you're looking for something to fill that GUTGAA void, there are some fantastic contests coming up for the month of October.  I've heard of six so far (six!!)  If you know of any others, please post in the comments section and I will update the list.

Oct. 13 - Hook, Line and Sinker

Oct. 13-16 - Spooktacular Pitch Extravaganza (Both participating agents were part of GUTGAA, so this contest is great for those that didn't make it into the agent round.)

Oct.15 - Get Your Pitch On

Oct. 15-19 - Pitch Live

Oct 24 - Trick or Treat with an Agent

Oct. 30 - Third Annual Baker's Dozen

As if I needed another reason to love the month of October (any other Halloween geeks out there?)

Hope to see you at a few of them!

Twitter-ific: Twitter for Writers

Once upon a time, I kind of looked down on people who were obsessed with Twitter. Guess they don't have anything better to do than tell a bunch of people what they're eating for breakfast, was generally how my thought process went.

Then I joined Twitter to participate in an agent contest, about three months ago.

Ahem. 1900 tweets later, I would like to sincerely apologize for those uncharitable thoughts. I get it now.

The thing no one told me: how many writers were on Twitter. How many talented, hilarious, kind, and - above all - supportive writers. I now am an active member of a large group of awesome people. We cheer the good news and boo the bad news together.

I had a very rejection-filled day a few weeks ago and was feeling pretty low.

This was me.

I tweeted about it - nothing too hopeless, just something like, "Why do all the rejections have to come at once?" Within minutes, I had a dozen replies from other writers, some who are right there in the query trenches with me and could completely relate, some who have agents and book deals and just wanted to tell me to hang in there, it gets better. It was the best pick-me-up I could have imagined.

Beyond the support system, Twitter is also an excellent source of valuable information for writers at any stage of the process. I follow many agents and editors who are founts of tips and inside scoops on what they're looking for (and what they're rejecting). Even if a Twitter newbie didn't feel comfortable putting out tweets of their own, there's a whole lot to be learned just by following a bunch of reputable agents and editors and doing some "listening."

My advice to new writers who want to be Twitter-ers (I'm still not totally hep to the lingo, obviously!) is to first follow as many industry-professionals as you can. They usually list their Twitter handles on their blogs or websites.

Then keep an eye out for Twitter contests. Even if you don't participate, it's a great way to find other writers who are at the same stage of the process as you. One of my best Twitter friends (now a real-life friend who I met up with at a recent conference!) made the first contact by telling me she loved my contest entry. I've now done the same thing to others several times.

So if you're an aspiring writer and have been wondering if Twitter can help you: the answer is yes. Try it out and see if you like it!

And for the record: I'm @trionabmurphy if you want to say hi.

Writer's Resource: Savvy Authors Pitch Contests

There have been tons of blog-hosted writing contests over the last few months (Cupid's Literary Connection, Miss Snark's First Victim, and Operation Awesome, to name a few.)  I've been in revisions mode for the last few months, and while it's been soooooo tempting to enter some of them, I've held off.  I learned the hard way that if you enter a contest there's a very real chance you might win, and if you win a page critique or manuscript request from an agent before your manuscript is ready, well...that's one agent you can scratch off your list come query time.

A few weeks ago I finally finished my revisions, and now it's time to bring on the contests!

*runs off to dance jig to secret favorite song Call Me Maybe*

During my contest research, I stumbled upon a great site called Savvy Authors.  Admittedly I'm still checking this resource out, but one section was so exciting that I just had to share - they have an entire section of the site dedicated to regular pitch contests, and they pull in some stellar agents.

It's free to sign up for the basic site package, which is the only requirement to enter the contests (that I've seen so far.)  Below is a list of the upcoming pitch opportunities:

July 13 - Share your one line pitch with Jill Marsal of Marsal Lyon Literary Agency
July 16 - Share your one line pitch with Laurie McLean of Larsen Pomada
July 23 - Share your one line pitch with Peter Knapp of Park Literary Group
July 27 - Share your FIRST PAGE with Nicole Resciniti of The Seymour Agency 

And that's just July!

Check out the pitch section of the site for more details.  As always, make sure you check the agent's list of wants and repped genres before submitting.

Now that I'm in contest/submission mode, I'll plan to share contests as I find them.  If you have any good ones you'd like to recommend, please post them into the comments section.

Happy Writing (and contest entering, and submitting, and jig dancing...)

Stacy