Get Your Pitch On-Ignite

The #PitchOn activities are underway. If you meant to enter the workshops and lost track of the date, don’t panic. You still have time. You only need two things, a completed YA manuscript that’s ready to be pitched to agents, and a 50-70 word pitch to go along with it. Information about how to enter can be found right here.

Do you want to know what you’re up against? You can check out the other pitch’s that have been entered in the workshops by visiting the host blogs.

Entering your pitch shouldn’t be your only interest, you also need to wander around to the participating blogs and leave a comment. For every comment you leave, you have a chance to receive a 10 page critique from one of these great people.

 Sharon Johnston

Larissa Hardesty

Stephanie Diaz

Catherine Scully

Jodie Andrefski

Paula Sangare

Talynn 

Kaitlin Adams.

To date, I’ve gotten 1 pitch.

IGNITE

YA Paranormal Suspense

70,000

In the care of WitWatch—a top-secret witness protection bureau operated by supernatural agents—seventeen-year-old Alison Summers and her fire-wielding Watcher are determined to discover who murdered Ali’s grandmother and prove she’s not crazy. But, when a discharged agent with an antibody to eliminate powers learns Ali possesses the element, Water, she becomes next on his to-cure list.

I’m going to start off by saying that I like the idea behind this story. Based on the premise, it’s something I would pick up and read. However, and this is just my opinion, the pitch could still use some work. To me it’s kind of muddled, and a tiny bit confusing. My favorite part of the pitch is the final sentence, which seems to be the heart of the pitch, though I’m not sure about starting the sentence with but. I think it would be just as good if you started with when a discharged. 

My big problem with this pitch is the first sentence. I think it needs to be rewritten. This is just my opinion, but I think you could drop the part about WitWatch, and launch into how Alison Summers is trying to solve the mystery of her grandmother’s murder, and add a few words about how she’s going about it, and the challenges she’s encountering, attach that to your current second sentence, and have a powerful pitch.

Good luck!

Get Your Pitch On! Important Information

Anyone who has a completely finished, completely polished Young Adult manuscript that's read to start making the submission rounds will want to join in on the fun of Get Your Pitch On (#PitchOn is the Twitter hashtag). You won't regret it.

Workshops for Get Your Pitch On will start on October 1, but you can send your pitches through now to secure your spot with a host blog.

There is no date deadline for the workshops. Each blog has allocated a set number of pitches that they can host and once those spots are full then no more submissions will be taken.

Important Rule: If you want to participate in a workshop, you must be prepared to comment on at least one other pitch.

How to submit: Email your draft pitch to pitchonws@gmail.com and include PitchOnWS and the title of the manuscript in the subject line. Pitches must follow the formatting as specified for the Get Your Pitch On contest. If you missed if before check out this post here and you can see the list of blogs participating here.

Draft pitches will be evenly distributed between host blogs.

And interview with Commissioning and Managing Editor of Hardie Grant Egmont, Marisa Pintado, will be coming up soon on my blog so that you have an idea what she's looking for before she takes your pitches both here on Down Under Wonderings and on my group blog YAtopia on October 15th. The exact contest opening times will be included in that post.

An Opportunity to get Critiqued 

Head on over to the other host blogs to critique more pitches. For each critique you leave in the comments, you get an entry into the drawing to win one of eight 10-page critiques from one of the following hosts: Sharon Johnston, Larissa Hardesty, Stephanie Diaz, Catherine Scully, Jodie Andrefski, Paula Sangare, Talynn and Kaitlin Adams. Please use the exact same name for all of your critiques. The opportunity ends 10/14/2012.

Have fun honing your pitches!

Good Luck!

GET YOUR PITCH ON!!!

 

YAtopia and Down Under Wonderings blogs have gotten together and arranged the fantastic GET YOUR PITCH ON. which provides the writers of YA fictions with an opportunity to avoid the slush pile. The only thing you need to do is put together a compelling 50-70 words pitch of your polished manuscript and sign up to participate.

Here's the rules:

• Your manuscript must be complete, polished and ready to query - this means no first drafts or almost finished manuscripts.
• It must be YA.
• When the contest goes live on October 15th, post your entry details in the comments section of either YAtopia or Down Under Wonderings - each blog is accepting 100 entries only.
• Your entry detail needs to include a 50 - 70 word pitch.
• You can enter more than once if you have more than one complete, polished, ready to query manuscript.

Just as it's important to get someone else to look over your manuscript before you query, it's a good idea to get feedback on your pitch before you post. We have about twenty blogs who are ready to help you hone your pitch. These workshops start on October 1.

I'm one of the several blogs who will be helping host this fantastic opportunity.

If you need more information, you can find it here!

Do you want to help host? You can sign up here!

LOTS OF ADDITIONAL INFORMATION WILL BE COMING AT YOU ON 9/24 so you want to take a minute and bookmark both Down Under Wonderings and YAtopia and make sure you don't get left out of the loop. You'll be glad you did!

SIGN-UP INFORMATION COMING 9/24! :-)