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Wednesday, May 2, 2012

The Writer's Voice ... The Official Instructions For Submissions


“The Writer’s Voice” is a multi-blog, multi-agent contest hosted by Cupid of Cupid’s Literary Connection, Brenda Drake of Brenda Drake Writes, Monica B.W. of Love YA, and Krista Van Dolzer of Mother. Write. (Repeat.). We’re basing it on NBC’s singing reality show The Voice, so the four of us will serve as coaches and select projects for our teams based on their queries and first pages.

Here’s the timeline:

May 3
Everyone submits their entries
May 3-10
We select our team members from “The Writer’s Voice” Blogfest
May 10-17
We coach our team members, helping them polish their entries
May 17
We post our team members’ entries on our blogs
May 21
Agents vote for their favorites

Since submissions will open tomorrow, here are a few more details as to how that will work:

The Genres

To enter “The Writer’s Voice,” your manuscript must meet two conditions: First, it must be COMPLETE, POLISHED, AND READY TO QUERY, and second, it must be in one of the following genres:

Adult Fantasy
Adult Science Fiction
Adult Romance
YA fiction (all subgenres)
MG fiction (all subgenres)

Submission Windows

We’ll accept entries in two time slots. The first submission window will open at 9:00 a.m. EDT on Thursday, May 3, and will close once we receive 75 entries. The second submission window will open at 9:00 p.m. EDT on the same day and will close once we receive another 75 entries.

The Widget

We’ll accept submissions via one of Mister Linky’s Magical Widgets, which we’ll post on all four of our blogs on May 3. The widget will appear on our blogs at the same time and will sync with the other copies that appear on the other three blogs. So if Bobbie Sue goes to Cupid’s blog and signs up for the number five slot over there, she’ll show up in the number five slot on Brenda’s, Monica’s, and Krista’s blogs, too. In other words, it doesn’t matter which blog you use to sign up; the widget that appears on one of them is the same widget that appears on all of them.

Please note that WE’RE ONLY ACCEPTING 75 ENTRIES IN THE FIRST SUBMISSION WINDOW even though we’re programming the widget to accept 150 entries total, so if more than 75 people sign up tomorrow morning, WE WILL DELETE THE ADDITIONAL ENTRIES and ask those people to try again in the second submission window.

Posting Your Entry and Sending It to Us

Securing a slot in the widget is your confirmation that you’re in the contest. Once you’ve secured that slot (or in other words, once you’ve signed up for the blogfest), you’ll post THE PLOT SUMMARY FROM YOUR QUERY and THE FIRST 250 WORDS of your manuscript on your blog. Then you’ll send your query, first 250 words, and A LINK TO YOUR BLOG POST in the body of an e-mail to TheWritersVoiceContest(at)gmail(dot)com, with your blogfest number, title, and genre in the subject line.

In summary, you must follow these three steps to enter:

1. Sign up for the blogfest/secure a slot in the widget during one of the submission windows listed above.

2. Post the plot summary from your query and the first 250 words of your manuscript on your blog.

3. Send your plot summary, first 250 words, and a link to your blog post to TheWritersVoiceContest(at)gmail(dot)com, with your blogfest number, title, and genre in the subject line.

If you make it into the blogfest, please post your entry and send it to our e-mail address as quickly as possible. We just want to have plenty of time to review all the entries. Also, the e-mail address will send you an automated response to let you know we received your entry, so keep an eye out for that.

We think that about covers it. If you have any questions about the rest of the process, please refer to our last post about the contest. And if you have any last-minute questions about tomorrow’s submissions, feel free to ask them in the comments below.

That's it. Simple. Right? Good luck, everyone!

22 comments:

  1. You guys are awesome. I could only imagine how much work goes into putting something like this together. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I won't be submitting this time, but I'll be watching. =)

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  2. SO excited for this.

    I wonder if the widget is going to crash :)

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  4. Sounds amazing! I don't have anything to submit, but this is such an awesome opportunity! I'll be sure to spread the word. Thanks for doing this.

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  5. Do you know what agents you're expecting this time around?

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  6. I'm really looking forward to it, though I'm expecting I'll once again be in a tiny minority for writing YA historical.

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  7. Oh, I hope I'm around a computer when the widget opens up!

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  8. Okay this might be a dumb question but if the 250th word lies in the middle of a sentence do we finish the sentence or go back to the end of the previous one for a less then 250 word submission?

    Thanks!

    So excited!

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  9. Kate, my momma always told me there were no dumb questions. If the 250 words end in a middle of sentence, go to the end of the sentence. :D

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  10. Hmmm, Donelle, I think we had a post on that earlier. There are 8 of them and I can't think at the top my head. So busy today. I'll find it and tweet it soon.

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  11. This is such a fantastic idea. Can't wait to see how it's going to turn out.

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  12. This is such a cool contest. I can't wait to see how it all plays out. :) So exciting!

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  14. Brilliant initiative! Thank you for taking the time to do this. If you keep this up we'll proclaim you four as our Fairy Godmothers! Thank you for this awesome opportunity.
    Ken

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  15. Thanks for helping put this together, Brenda!

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  16. I think you four are Goddesses amongst women - thank you so much for your time and efforts, all of you.
    Love Ya
    J
    xxx

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  17. Sounds like a great contest! I'm not ready to jump in at the moment, so I'm hoping you'll host another one . . .

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  18. Congrats to those that made it in! I was refreshing 2 minutes to 6am but I didn't hit it right. Darn. I'll try again tonight. :)

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  19. I know you had a lot going on last night regarding running a third window for those affected by the glitch, so I waited until this morning to post a comment.

    In the instructions above, it says I will receive an automated response from the email when I send in that part of my submission. I have not received it, so I'm just checking to see if there is a backlog, or if I need to resend because it wasn't received on your end. I want to honor your request to have my submission in as soon as possible.

    Thank you!

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  20. Donald, I just checked and we do have your entry. Good luck!

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  21. I'm so excited for this contest! Thank you so much for hosting. :D

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  22. What an awesome opportunity! Good luck to everyone who made the submission window. I'm looking forward to reading some of the entries. :)

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Brenda Drake

Brenda Drake

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I write young adult and middle grade novels. I'm represented by Peter Knapp at Park Literary. Look for my debut young adult novel, LIBRARY JUMPERS releasing February, 2014.

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