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Pitch Wars submission window is now closed!

Tuesday, 12 August 2014  |  Posted by Brenda Drake

Pitch Wars 2014 logo

Because we are so cool, we’re opening the submission window early! It will remain open until the original closing of August 18 at 11:59PM EDT (just before midnight).

For those unfamiliar with Pitch Wars, it’s a contest where published/agented authors, editors, or interns choose one writer each, read their entire manuscript, and offer suggestions on how to make the manuscript shine. The mentor also critique his/her writer’s pitch to get it ready for the agent round. To do this, the mentors read all their applications and choose the writer they want to mentor for two months to get them ready for the agent round. Writers can pick up to four mentors to submit to.

For a list our mentors and submission guidelines go here. For a list of our agents this year, go here.

If you have any difficulties with this form, or if there’s a technical glitch, or if the site blows up, don’t panic, just  e-mail Dan Koboldt at dan.k.pitchwars@gmail.com and let him know the issue. And maybe me, too, but my bet is Dan would know what to do before I would.

About your queries: It should have all parts of the query, as if you were sending to an agent. “Dear Mentor” works for the salutation and make sure to include your bio (if you have one) and category/genre/word count.

About your first chapters: Send the first chapter of your manuscript no matter how long it is. Don’t send your prologues, send the first chapter. You can send the prologues later if the mentor asks for a full manuscript. If you don’t have chapters in your book, send the first 2500 words. If you fear your first chapter is too short, don’t worry, our mentors will ask for more if you hook them.

After you hit send on the form, it will tell you if your submission has been accepted.

PLEASE DON’T ENTER IF YOU AREN’T READY, once you hit send there are no take backs or changes. Double check that you have the right mentors for the category (MG, YA, NA, or Adult)  you are submitting, your entry will be deleted if you send it to a mentor who is not requesting your category.

Please do NOT reenter your form. When you hit submit the form will say your entry has been received. Receipts are talking hours to days to arrive in entrants’ email boxes. AGAIN, please do not reenter your entry!

THE SUBMISSION WINDOW IS NOW CLOSED. COME BACK SEPTEMBER 3 FOR THE MENTORS’ PICKS!

Filed: Misc

59 Comments
  • Rochelle says:

    Um… I’m a little confused. I used the form to submit and don’t think I made any mistakes on it. But the text above says that we will not get an email receipt, and I did…

  • Per above.

    You will not get an email receipt. After you hit send on the form, it will tell you if your submission has been accepted.

    PLEASE DON’T ENTER IF YOU AREN’T READY, once you hit send there are no take backs or changes. Double check that you have the right mentors for the category (MG, YA, NA, or Adult) you are submitting, your entry will be deleted if you send it to a mentor who is not requesting your category.

    Thank you for entering Pitch Wars! Your submission has been received, and you should soon receive an automatic confirmation by e-mail.

    I have not gotten an email but am confused if I will be getting an email!. Thanks!

  • Kristin says:

    Well, I did it. It’s in the hands of the Gods now.

  • Quiarah Butler says:

    Sent mine, but still haven’t gotten a receipt. Guess I’m playing the waiting game.

    I double checked my email, and all the other information as well, so I hope to get a confirmation soon.

    Thanks for keeping us up-to-date, Brenda!

  • Quiarah Butler says:

    Oh, never mind. I just reread the comments on here. We’re NOT supposed to get a receipt. I thought it said that we WERE.

    did I get this right?

  • Kevin Pech says:

    *Tosses hat into the ring* Here we go!
    *Goes back to writing*

  • somer givens says:

    I sent in my submissions but I don’t think I got a “Submission accepted” note. Not sure what to do to see if mine went through???

  • Jocelyn Frentz says:

    Thanks for this Brenda! I got my confirmed receipt. This is so much work and I’m so happy you do it : )

  • Leah Collum says:

    Sorry, I’m a little confused . . . My message says “Your submission has been received, and you should soon receive an automatic confirmation by e-mail,” but I haven’t received an e-mail confirmation yet. Is this something to be worried about, or should I not expect an e-mail confirmation after all?

  • Laurie Gigliotti says:

    Submitted and site didn’t tell me if my submission went through…. hoping for the best! 🙂

  • Jericho McKraven says:

    This seems to be a trending comment right now, but I also didn’t get any sort of conformation that my submission went through.

    Anyways, best of luck to each of you, I’ve got my fingers crossed for all of us! 🙂

  • Maghen B.B. says:

    My MS is adult fantasy romance.For the submission form I need to pick either fantasy or romance. Do you have any suggestions on which one I pick? Does it matter that much since my query clearly defines that it is both?

    Thanks

  • sgf says:

    “You can send the prologues later if the mentor asks for a full manuscript.”

    Does this mean mentors may request a full manuscript before they choose a mentee?
    Thank you!

  • Suja Sukumar says:

    Hi,
    Same issue here. I hit submit, but received no confirmation that the submission went through. I’m hoping it did.

  • Trish Knox says:

    I submitted but didn’t see the confirmation email so have submitted again!

  • Quiarah Butler says:

    Were we supposed to included our twitter name? I saw a few mentors say something about it on twitter, but I didn’t see it anywhere in the rules. I’m still new to twitter, so I’m learning as a I go, especially with contest. Are my chances slim since I didn’t include my twitter handle?

  • Kiri Jorgensen says:

    Thanks so much for opening the submissions early! I’ll be out of town/internet on the 18th so I had worked out all kinds of complicated back-up plans for submission. I just submitted, and can now travel with much less stress. Thank you!

  • angie says:

    There was some confusion with Ben Brooks accepting YA or not.
    He tweeted at it said YA for 3 hours on his site – then he took it off….I wish he was still able to glance at YA!
    I think he’s awesome.
    I sent to him, but he is now only accepting MG – am I able to pick another mentor or am I out of luck on that one?
    Thanks – Ang

    • angie says:

      Actually – don’t worry about it. The other 3 I picked rock —

      But you might want to know that this was a glitch — some others might have sent him YA too.

      Thanks A

  • D.R. Perry says:

    Hello,

    I’m another person who didn’t get a confirmation. Did my entry go through?

    Thanks so much for all the hard work everyone does for this contest!

    D.R. Perry

  • Beth Pond says:

    Tried to submit and it says I failed the secret question. Is that the number thing? I double checked everything, retried and got the same message. I’m confused…

  • I submitted and got a receipt that my submission was received. Mine is a Humorous MG. Fingers crossed.

  • Sharon M. says:

    Hi! I’ve attempted to enter my submission this morning. I had everything in but when I pressed submit, nothing happened except that the link for my first chapter does not seem to want to go through. I’ve tried more than once w/ no luck. It keeps saying “This field is required.” I’ve already sent Dan an email 🙁

  • T. M. Becker says:

    Brenda, I was wondering if the four mentors we submitted to will send us a rejection if they aren’t interested, or if we can only expect to hear from them if they want more. Thanks.

  • Bianca says:

    oh no 🙁 I submitted and there was no message that said ‘your pitch has been accepted’, it just brought me back to this page… (I know I’m not supposed to submit again, but what do I do?). Today’s the deadline, help!

    • Bianca says:

      I got an email! So that means I am fine and did not miss the deadline (?). Should anyone notice my submission was NOT received then pleeeease let me know. I am following replies on this blog 🙂 What a cool idea (pitch wars), I’ve got my fingers crossed!

  • Carrie-Anne says:

    Thanks so much for giving us this opportunity! Hopefully one of my would-be mentors likes a quiet, historical MG.

    I just got a new computer, which no longer has Word and can’t open Word 2004 from my old computer. I’m trusting the Pages to Word conversion I did for the file has worked!

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