Every so often, Chuck Sambuccino, the editor of the Guide to Literary Agents, runs a free contest called "Dear Lucky Agent." These contests allow writers to submit one page of their manuscript to be judged by an agent. Winners of the contest have a more than good chance of getting representation.
It's good to enter contests, not just because you may win one, but because they force you to write short summaries and synopses, and to polish your first few pages until they shine. These are usually the only pages an agent will see before making a decision. (Sometimes they only read a paragraph.)
The contest deadline is Wednesday, August 24, 2016. CLICK HERE for more details.
For hundreds of free contests organized by month see: FREE CONTESTS.
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From Writer's Digest:
WHY YOU SHOULD GET EXCITED
After a previous “Dear Lucky Agent” contest, the agent judge, Tamar Rydzinski (The Laura Dail Literary Agency), signed one of the three contest winners. After Tamar signed the writer, she went on to sell two of that writer’s books! How cool! That’s why these contests are not to missed if you have an eligible submission.
HOW TO SUBMIT
E-mail entries to dearluckyagent22@gmail.com. Please paste everything. No attachments.
MEET YOUR (AWESOME) AGENT JUDGE!
ANDREA MORRISON of Writers House started in the California office in 2009 as an intern to Steve Malk, and she has been in love with publishing and the company ever since. In NYC, she first learned under Brianne Johnson, and then went on to assist Rebecca Sherman and Geri Thoma.
She’s had the opportunity to work closely with a variety of best-selling and award-winning authors and illustrators, in genres ranging from picture books to middle grade and YA, to adult literary fiction and nonfiction. She is now actively building her own list of clients. Andrea studied literature & writing at University of California, San Diego and earned her MFA in fiction from Columbia University.
WHAT TO SUBMIT (AND OUR SOCIAL MEDIA REQUIREMENTS)
The first 150-250 words (i.e., your first double-spaced page) of your unpublished, completed book-length work of young adult (no high sci-fi or high fantasy, please). You must include a contact e-mail address with your entry and use your real name. Also, submit the title of the work and a logline (one-sentence description of the work) with each entry.
Please note: To be eligible to submit, you must mention this contest twice through any any social-media. Please provide a social-media link or Twitter handle or screenshot or blog post URL, etc., with your official e-mailed entry so the judge and I can verify eligibility. Some previous entrants could not be considered because they skipped this step! Simply spread the word twice through any means and give us a way to verify you did; a TinyURL for this link/contest for you to easily use is http://tinyurl.com/z7e9rsc.
An easy way to notify me of your sharing is to include my Twitter handle @chucksambuchino at the end of your mention(s) if using Twitter. If we’re friends on FB, tag me in the mention. And if you are going to solely use Twitter as your 2 times, please wait one day between mentions to spread out the notices, rather than simply tweeting twice back to back. Thanks. (Please note that simply tweeting me does not count. You have to include the contest URL with your mention; that’s the point. And if you use Twitter, put my handle @chucksambuchino at the middle or the end, not at the very beginning of the tweet, or else the tweet will be invisible to others.)
Here is a sample TWEET you can use (feel free to tweak): New FREE contest for writers of Young Adult http://tinyurl.com/z7e9rsc Judged by agent Andrea Morrison of Writers House, via @chucksambuchino
It's good to enter contests, not just because you may win one, but because they force you to write short summaries and synopses, and to polish your first few pages until they shine. These are usually the only pages an agent will see before making a decision. (Sometimes they only read a paragraph.)
The contest deadline is Wednesday, August 24, 2016. CLICK HERE for more details.
For hundreds of free contests organized by month see: FREE CONTESTS.
_________________________________
From Writer's Digest:
WHY YOU SHOULD GET EXCITED
After a previous “Dear Lucky Agent” contest, the agent judge, Tamar Rydzinski (The Laura Dail Literary Agency), signed one of the three contest winners. After Tamar signed the writer, she went on to sell two of that writer’s books! How cool! That’s why these contests are not to missed if you have an eligible submission.
HOW TO SUBMIT
E-mail entries to dearluckyagent22@gmail.com. Please paste everything. No attachments.
MEET YOUR (AWESOME) AGENT JUDGE!
ANDREA MORRISON of Writers House started in the California office in 2009 as an intern to Steve Malk, and she has been in love with publishing and the company ever since. In NYC, she first learned under Brianne Johnson, and then went on to assist Rebecca Sherman and Geri Thoma.
She’s had the opportunity to work closely with a variety of best-selling and award-winning authors and illustrators, in genres ranging from picture books to middle grade and YA, to adult literary fiction and nonfiction. She is now actively building her own list of clients. Andrea studied literature & writing at University of California, San Diego and earned her MFA in fiction from Columbia University.
WHAT TO SUBMIT (AND OUR SOCIAL MEDIA REQUIREMENTS)
The first 150-250 words (i.e., your first double-spaced page) of your unpublished, completed book-length work of young adult (no high sci-fi or high fantasy, please). You must include a contact e-mail address with your entry and use your real name. Also, submit the title of the work and a logline (one-sentence description of the work) with each entry.
Please note: To be eligible to submit, you must mention this contest twice through any any social-media. Please provide a social-media link or Twitter handle or screenshot or blog post URL, etc., with your official e-mailed entry so the judge and I can verify eligibility. Some previous entrants could not be considered because they skipped this step! Simply spread the word twice through any means and give us a way to verify you did; a TinyURL for this link/contest for you to easily use is http://tinyurl.com/z7e9rsc.
An easy way to notify me of your sharing is to include my Twitter handle @chucksambuchino at the end of your mention(s) if using Twitter. If we’re friends on FB, tag me in the mention. And if you are going to solely use Twitter as your 2 times, please wait one day between mentions to spread out the notices, rather than simply tweeting twice back to back. Thanks. (Please note that simply tweeting me does not count. You have to include the contest URL with your mention; that’s the point. And if you use Twitter, put my handle @chucksambuchino at the middle or the end, not at the very beginning of the tweet, or else the tweet will be invisible to others.)
Here is a sample TWEET you can use (feel free to tweak): New FREE contest for writers of Young Adult http://tinyurl.com/z7e9rsc Judged by agent Andrea Morrison of Writers House, via @chucksambuchino
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