Pitch Madness 2016 MARIO KART Edition!
The submission window is now open!
To submit your MS pitch into the contest, enter your information in the form below.
What is Pitch Madness?
It’s a contest to win a request from one or more of the participating agents. (See who they are here.)
The submission window is open from NOW and until 11:59PM EST on February 26th. You should have plenty of time to get your submissions in. Make sure to perfect your entry. If you make an error, you may not resend. 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 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.
Pitch Madness will be on four blogs:
Rainbow Road Team on Summer Heacock’s site
Bowser’s Castle Team on Rebecca Coffindaffer’s site
Moo Moo Meadows Team on Sharon Johnston’s site
Yoshi Falls Team on Brenda Drake’s site
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.
This year’s first round readers can be found here.
All the twitter fun will happen on the hashtag #PitchMadness!
THE SUBMISSION WINDOW IS NOW CLOSED. Good luck to all those who entered! We’ll be announcing the winners either March 6, 7, or 8 during the team drafts. We’ll let you know as soon as we have a concrete date.
So excited, but I thought this contest didn’t open until midnight. Can we really submit our entries now?
Confused. Was someone so excited to get this started that she jumped the gun? If we follow this instruction and submit now, will you really delete the entry for being outside the previously designated window?
Sorry, I missed removing that bit. We will not delete any entries. We opened early.
Hi Susan! I thought it started tomorrow, too, but I just submitted my entry.
Hello Cynde,
So glad to see you’re entering. Yes, I guess it’s starting early. I’m going to get my entry in this afternoon. Good luck!
Yeah, I went ahead and submitted, too. I checked Twitter as Elizabeth Hartey said she had, but I sure wish somebody from Brenda’s camp would respond to the blog comments. Yesterday, there was a question about how hyphenated words count in the pitch, and there’s still no answer.
Brenda loves surprises and couldn’t wait to start. The submissions will be taken starting at noon today (Thursday) but the cutoff will still be Friday the 26th at MIDNIGHT! Thanks for participating!
Best of luck to everyone.
As a child of the ’60s, I know how to go with the flow. 🙂
Yes, according to Twitter, the window was open early.
Yes, submit! And good luck!
I submitted my entry because I received an email that the submission window was now open. I hope that’s OK because I thought the window didn’t open until 12am. Please let me know if I need to resubmit if the email for submission was sent out incorrectly. Thanks
Not only the above, but contrary to yesterday’s post, (which said, “The submission window for Pitch Madness is this Friday, February 26th, and will be open for 24 hours (12:01AM EST to MIDNIGHT EST). There will be no limit to the number of submissions. Everyone who submits during the window will make it into the contest. You will receive a receipt by email.”) the submission form now says that’s not so — there will be not email receipt.
There hasn’t been any response to the question’s of word count for hyphenated words yet, either.
I feel as though I’m about to follow a white rabbit down a hole.
Not only the above, but contrary to yesterday’s post, (which said, “The submission window for Pitch Madness is this Friday, February 26th, and will be open for 24 hours (12:01AM EST to MIDNIGHT EST). There will be no limit to the number of submissions. Everyone who submits during the window will make it into the contest. You will receive a receipt by email.”) the submission form now says that’s not so — there will be not email receipt.
There hasn’t been any response to the questions of word count for hyphenated words yet, either.
I feel as though I’m about to follow a white rabbit down a hole.
Just checked twitter. They opened submissions early. Good luck!
This was my fault! I’m sorry for the confusion. Last year we tried sending receipts and a lot of them didn’t work, but I didn’t know that Brenda wanted to change this before I put up the post. Please know that if you see that the form was submitted, you can be assured that we have it.
As for hyphenated, we will count it as one word.
Thanks for your patience! It’s hard being the newbie.
Thanks for the clarification! Still following that rabbit, but it looks like I could have carried two more words. Lol. Good luck to you through the rest of the process, Heather!
Thanks! I feel like I am being swept away by the flow. It’ll all work out in the end, and best of luck, S.T.
Am I correct in assuming we submit one time on only one blog site? Not one time on each blog site…?
Thanks,
Laurie
Only one submission for the entire contest. Not per site. Those are just to reach more writers but will redirect them to submit on Brenda’s Blog.
I am redirected on Team Moo Moo Meadows – any suggestions?
Thank you so much for this contest! I just discovered it. Entry is in!
That’s sweet of you! Best of luck, Debby!
My browser crashed as soon as I submitted, and I’m not sure if my entry went through! Is it okay if I resubmit?
We got it, Rita! No need to resubmit. Thanks!
Great, thank you for checking!
The same thing happened to me! Did it come through too?
Thanks so much for doing this!
Keely, we received two for you. So you’re good. I’m deleting the other one
This is my first year to enter! This is so much fun! Thanks for hosting this and for opportunity it provides! (Happy Dance)
First time doing something like this. Exciting! 🙂
Thanks to Brenda and all helping with this contest!
Wooooohooooo!!!
Good luck to all the entrants!
I’m confused. The original post for this contest stated “there is no limit of how many entries will be accepted.” The instructions on this page say “only one entry per writer.” Does that mean only one manuscript or only one pitch? I wish the instructions were more precise. 🙁
There is no limit meaning no matter how many writers enter we will accept them. No cap on the total number of submissions. But only one entry per writer.
I don’t mean to be obtuse…but does “entry” refer to manuscript or pitch? Please clarify.
Your entry is the one manuscript you decide to enter into the submission window. One per writer. And it’s okay to be confused. There’s a lot of terminology we are all used to slinging around.
This is my first year entering — thank you for hosting!!! When I hit send, though, I saw nothing that said my form was submitted. Should I resubmit?
You are there, Laura! We have it in the slush!
Thanks so much, Heather, for the confirmation and running this contest! You guys are amazing!
Thanks so much for offering another amazing contest. I always learn so much from reading the entries in all your contests.
I had the same experience as Laura, no confirmation that my submission was received. Please advise. Thank you!
Found it!
I’m having the same experience as Mary Lou and Laura. I submitted my entry but nothing happened… so sorry to trouble you, but could you please confirm you have everything you need? Thanks so much for hosting this contest!!!!
I just wanted to say thank you for giving us the opportunity to submit our work!
I looked for the message that my entry was received, but didn’t see it. Sorry to bother you, but just want to confirm that you received it. Thank you! Lynne Constantine
I just moved it to the slush, Lynne. Thanks for submitting and good luck!
Thanks so much!
Comment I too did not get a confirmation. I hate to be a pain but could you see if mine was received?
Thanks again for doing all of this.
Yep! It’s there. 🙂
Thanks for setting up this contest. What a great idea and such a big help to querying writers! I’m excited to submit for the first time : )
Thanks! We’re so excited to have everyone submit, and welcome to the contest! Good luck!
Hi Heather- I had a bit of a browser issue when I subbed the entry form. Could you please confirm that you received my entry? Many thanks to you and Brenda for all of your hard work!
We’ve got it safe and sound, Chess! Good luck!
Cheers! Thank you for the confirmation, Heather.
Thank you so much for organizing this contest! Good luck to everyone who is entering! 🙂
Hi I didn’t get a form submitted page come up. Should I resubmit? There is only an hour and a half left…
It’s there! Thanks, Marith, and good luck!
My apologies if I’ve accidentally double-submitted. Please delete one as entries are identical. And thank you for all this hard work!
Awesome. Thank you!
I submitted Thursday night but didn’t get an email. Hoping it got through.
LOL What’s up with the avatar? I’m not mad.