Pitch Wars 2015 is coming! Are you ready?

Pitch Wars 2015 is coming! Are you ready?

fashion style    5:22 AM   

Brenda Drake hosts the popular Tweetfest, #PitchMAS. During #PitchMAS, writers tweet their pitches along with their category. Agents following the feed then contact the writers who grab their attention.

Pitch Wars is a preliminary event in which writers apply for critiques from mentors. Published and/or agented authors, editors, or industry interns choose one writer each, read their entire manuscript, and offer suggestions to prepare it for agents.

The process is as follows: First, go to the wish lists of all mentors and make a list of those who represent your genre; on a second pass go back to the mentors on your list and select those who have an editing style that suits you; and on a third pass narrow that list to five. On August 17 send your application to those five. You only get one chance at finding a mentor (and all five may reject you), so read your prospective mentors' pages carefully.

Note: Brenda has opened the submission window early. It is now open, and will remain open until August 17 at 11:59 PM EDT. After you submit your information, the submission screen will re-appear. Scroll down to the bottom of the screen to see the notice that your submission has been received.

To submit, click HERE.

For all you YA fantasy writers out there, I have assembled a list of all the mentors seeking YA fantasy. (This will save you a little time.) You have to narrow your list down to five, so read these pages with an eagle eye for those you feel would be a good match for you. (For a full list of mentors go HERE.)

Mindy McGinnis (co-mentoring with Kate Karyus Quinn)

Jenni L. Walsh (co-mentoring with Trisha Leaver)

Sarah Glenn Marsh

Rosalyn Eves

Linsey Miller

Lisa Maxwell

Wendy Spinale

Sarah Cannon

L.L. McKinney

Elizabeth Briggs

Ron Walters (co-mentoring with Meredith McCardle)

S.M. Johnston (co-mentoring with Stacey Nash)

Laura Salters

Megan Grimit

Katie Bucklein

Brianna Shrum

Kim Graff

Stacey Trombley

Susan Gray Foster (co- mentoring with Monica Bustamante Wagner_

Sarah Nicolas

Renee Ahdieh (co-mentoring with Traci Chee)

Janet B. Taylor (co-mentoring with Kathryn Purdie & Shannon Parker

Jessie Humphries (co- mentoring with Mara Rae)

Erica M. Chapman

Summer Spence

This is an excellent opportunity to get a solid critique of your work. Good luck!
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Pitch Wars 2015 is coming! Are you ready?

Posted By Brenda Drake on Jul 19, 2015

We’re so excited for Pitch Wars 2015! 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 critiques on how to make the manuscript shine. The mentor also critiques his/her writer’s pitch to get it ready for the agent round. Those entering Pitch Wars submit applications (query plus first chapter of manuscript) to our mentors. The mentors then 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. How will you decide what mentors to submit to?

Come back August 3 for our Mentor Wishlist Blog Hop. The mentors’ bios and wishlists will be posted to their blogs and linked from a post on my blog, and you can hop around and find the right matches for you. And visit the Twitter hashtag #PitchWars to get to know the mentors personally (virtually). The hop will go on until 8/17, which is submission day!!

This year, we won’t have alternates. Instead, I’ve added more mentors and there will be 92 mentee spots up for grabs. Applications will be sent through an easy submission form. The form will go live just after midnight (EDT – New York time) August 17 and remain open for 24 hours. What will you need to enter in the form? Your top four (max – you don’t have to pick 4, but you are limited to 4) mentors, your email address, title of the manuscript, category and genre, your query letter (sorry no personalized queries this year), and the first chapter of your completed manuscript (Word .doc or .docx format).  The sample chapter should be manuscript formatted pages (12pt, double-spaced). All of this will be fill-in-the-blank on the form.

Submission Guidelines:

• Only Middle Grade, Young Adult, New Adult, or Adult manuscripts will be accepted.
• This is open to completed, full-length, fiction manuscripts only.
• You may only enter one manuscript.
• Only the genres requested by each mentor will be considered for the contest.
• Writers may only apply to 5 mentors max.
• Mentors will only consider the categories they’ve signed up for. (The mentors’ categories – MG, YA, NA, or Adult – are set.)
• Writers cannot apply for a mentor that is not in their category or the application will be deleted.
• No nonfiction, picture books, chapter books, or previously published works. (If you’re an unagented author and have self-published before, you may enter the contest with a never-before-published manuscript.)

WARNING: Just like an agent, mentors may request more pages or a synopsis of your manuscript to help them make their final decision, so get them ready! Mentors may also pass your application on to another mentor they feel would be a better match. If a mentor you didn’t apply to picks you invites you to be his/her mentee, you have the right to pass on said invite.

Please note: Being kind to one another is mandatory in this contest. Should I find someone isn’t being kind and respecting others, I will remove you from the contest. Also, if you are difficult with your mentor or if you aren’t working well as a team or if you don’t take any of your mentor’s advice, your mentor will have the option to opt out of being your mentor. Remember your mentor has other obligations like deadlines, book promotions, and family life, please be mindful of their time. They are only required to read your manuscript once and give an edit letter. They aren’t required to do line edits. Our mentors are very generous with their time, so please be patient. We’ve had close to forty successes from last year’s Pitch Wars and it’s because of our mentors and the care they take with their mentees that it’s been such a great success.

If you were a mentee in Pitch Wars 2014 you may not enter Pitch Wars 2015. If you were a mentee in 2012-2013, you may enter with a new manuscript. If you were an alternate in any of the previous Pitch Wars, you may enter the same or a new manuscript for Pitch Wars 2015.

!!!! If you make it into Pitch Wars, you may not enter any contests or query during the mentoring period and until after the agent round, which is November 3-5. If you are currently in a contest (such as Pitch to Publish running at the same time as Pitch Wars), you may not enter Pitch Wars. When in doubt, ask.

For those who do not make it into Pitch Wars (and those who want to join in), we’ll hold a Twitter Pitch Party on #PitMad September 10 from 8AM to 8PM EST. If you make it into Pitch Wars, you may not pitch in #PitMad.

There will be an “Ask the Mentors” event on the Twitter hashtag, #AskMentor and on #PitchWars, on August 10 from 12:01AM to 11:59PM EDT. Stop by and ask mentors questions as you see them join the hashtag.

Some our Pitch Wars mentors will be chatting live with the Whiskey, Wine, & Writing gang at 8PM EDT. Make sure to watch and get to know the mentors. Here’s the schedule:

• August 4 and 11: Middle Grade mentors - Read about them HERE.
• August 5 and 12: Young Adult mentors - Read about them HERE.
• August 6: New Adult mentors (Mentors who are mentoring either YA/NA or NA/A)
• August 7: Adult mentors

For a full list of mentors go HERE.

Meet the agents HERE.

For the contest schedule go here.

For the submission form go here.

We look forward to seeing you August 3!

10 Ways to Find Your Ideal Audience on Twitter (For Writers)

10 Ways to Find Your Ideal Audience on Twitter (For Writers)

fashion style    11:31 AM   

Have you been approached by services that offer you 10, 000, 20,000 30,000 !!! Twitter followers for a nominal fee?

Don't do it.

Tens of thousands of followers might look good on your home page, but if those followers aren't reading your tweets, looking at your blog posts, and buying your books, they are just meaningless numbers. What you want is real followers, people who are interested in what you have to say, and in what you have written.

How do you get genuine followers?

First you have to find your ideal audience. There are several ways to go about this using three essential tools: Followers, Twitter Lists, and Hashtags.

1) Make a list of successful authors who are similar to you. Look at their "followers" list, and follow accounts that are active. (It helps if they have a significant number of followers - more than 2 digits. Avoid accounts that look like spam, or that don't appear relevant.) This may take a little time, because you will have to actually look at their accounts and see when they last tweeted. (Ideally they should be tweeting at least five times a week.) There is no point following people who don't tweet, because they will not tweet about you. It seems selfish, but the best use of Twitter is not what you tweet, but how many people are willing to re-tweet. That's called marketing.

2) Reviewers are your audience, too. To find book reviewers, do a search on #review plus your genre. Ex. "fantasy review." This will produce a list of recent reviews. Click on the account and if the reviewer has tweeted consistently about reviews/books, follow and add them to your list of reviewers. (Note: If you search "reviewer" instead of "review" a list of promotion companies will pop up.) You can also look at the followers on popular review sites.

3) Don't follow blind. Before you follow people, read their recent tweets. If you are interested in their tweets, chances are they will be interested in yours.

4) Look at the Twitter lists of authors in your genre, as well as businesses that promote books, publicists, agents who represent your genre. Do they keep a list of publicists, promotion sites, reviewers? If an author who writes in your genre keeps a list of reviewers, odds are they will be interested in your book. (Make sure you mention how you found them in your query, or in your tweet to them.) If the list is public, and looks as if it will be useful, you can subscribe. Then do steps 1 and 2 above. (And be sure to keep your own lists.)

5) Expand your scope beyond writers. For example, if you write about politics -  political thrillers included - find people who have similar political views to yours. (Use hashtags to find them. Ex #progressive.) Odds are pretty good that those people will be interested in what you are writing simply because you share the same point of view. (Everyone likes their perspective to be validated.) By the same token, if you write children's books, tweet about parenting, education, and other topics that interest people who are raising kids. Be engaged with the world.

6) Express yourself. If you feel strongly about something, don't be afraid to have an opinion. You want followers who believe in what you are willing to stand up for. Writers are leaders.

7) Tweet at least 5 times a day on different topics. Vary your tweets to include some with images, some that are an image only, some that are a comment, some that include a link (make sure to shorten it with bitly), and some personal news (your upcoming release, a new project you are working on, etc.) Check to see which tweets get the most responses on Twitter analytics. The tweets that are the most popular are an indication of what your audience likes to hear.

8) Use hashtags in your tweets. People who are on the lookout for topics, genres, free books on Kindle, and news events will search for them using hashtags. (If you aren't using hashtags, your tweet will get lost.) You can use those hashtags to find people who tweet on specific topics. Check out their home page, and if you like what they tweet, follow.

9) Don't be afraid to use Twitter to communicate directly with people - even if they are not your followers. I find that people who tweet me get my attention. Whether they are commenting on one of my tweets or offering something, I almost always respond, either by tweeting back, or by checking out the link they've sent me. Literary agents are also more likely to respond to a tweet than to a query. To get the attention of readers and reviewers there is no better tool than direct communication via Twitter. (Don't DM - direct message. People resent DMs. Just mention them via their handle @personyouaretweetingto.)

10) Make sure your bio includes the information that is relevant to potential followers. For example, if you write sci-fi, include your genre so that sci-fi readers can find you.  Don't include the fact that you have three kids, unless you specifically want Moms to follow you. Include what you tweet about and a personal closer that will get attention (e.g. something witty, funny, cute, dark - anything with a punch). Ex: "Author of scifi novels & short stories. Tweets about astronomy & Indie publishing. Building a time machine in my basement on weekends." On your profile, always include where you live, your website URL, and a head shot. (No eggs!)

Finding your ideal audience will take time and patience, but if you devote 15 minutes a day you can build a significant following within a few weeks. Two thousand active and engaged followers are worth more than 10,000 followers who exist in name only.

Related posts:

225 Hashtags for Writers

Platform, Shmatform: Social Media - How Numbers Lie

Twitter: How to Build a Following - for Writers

234 Hashtags for Writers

234 Hashtags for Writers

fashion style    1:14 PM   

If you are on Twitter and aren't using hashtags, you are wasting a great resource.

Hashtags (#) are a way of grouping posts on similar topics. They can be used to track trends and topical news, such as the hilarious #myozobituary posts that abounded after a national Australian newspaper opened their obituary of famed author and neurophsyiologist Colleen McCullough with the words: "Plain of face and certainly overweight, she was nevertheless of woman of wit and warmth." (If you can't see anything wrong with this description of the person who wrote The Thorn Birds - and 23 other novels - then I suggest you search twitter for #everydaysexism.)

Hashtags can also be used to search for specific information and topics, which brings me to why you need to employ hashtags that are already in use. If you want to reach a broad audience, you really don't want to make up a hashtag. (I confess to having done that. Apparently, #voodoomedicine is some kind of rock group.)

Utilizing hashtags that already have a following means you have a built-in set of people looking for you. And, with the millions of people tweeting day and night, it is better to have people actually seeking your posts, than to hope that they will somehow find you in the din.

That being said, there are some rules you should follow for using hashtags:

• Don't use more than three hashtags per tweet. 
• Don't #hashtag #several #words in a row in the body of your tweet. 
• Do not simply tweet invitations to read your book over and over again. You're a writer! Tweet something that is fun, interesting, informative, controversial, creative, and above all cool. 
• Before you use a hashtag, search Twitter to make sure it is appropriate for your tweet. 

Here are some useful articles on hashtags for writers:

44 Essential Twitter Hashtags Every Author Should Know

The Ultimate List of Author-Specific Hashtags

The 12 Best Hashtags for Writers

Want to find out what a specific hashtag means? Go here: https://tagdef.com/

__________________________________________

Bloggers

#MondayBlogs Post your blog posts on Mondays only. Bloggers will retweet.

Indie Promotion

#IARTG - Indie Author Retweet Group: Simply follow to join, then add #IARTG in any tweet you want us to re-tweet. :) #RT #indie #author #retweet #group @retweet_groups

#IFNRTG - ReTweets for Fantasy Indie Authors via #IFNRTG @IFNRTG and Book Promos via #Books & More! Blog.BerniceFischer.com

#IAN or #IAN1 (Independent Author Networking)

#Indie

#IndieAuthor

#IndiePub (or #IndiePublishing)

#Indiepubchat

#BYNR - Book Your Next Read. "Avid-Reader and keen supporter of Indie-Authors. Here to spread the good word about great Books. Please include the hashtag #BYNR We #followback & #RT." Twitter @BookYrNextRead. Facebook.

Writing and Connecting With Other Authors

#140Poem

#1K1H or #1K1HR  (write one thousand words in one hour)

#amediting - posts from people who are editing

#amwriting - posts from people who are writing

#AmRevising - posts from people who are revising

#AuthorLife – writers sharing random stuff
#ASMSG - Authors Social Media Group

#CopyWriting – advice about copywriting

#EditGoal

#Editing

#IndieAuthors

#nanowrimo - national novel writing month

#WordCount

#wip - work in progress

#WriteGoodNews

#Writer

#Writers

#WritersBlock

#WriteChat – all sorts of advice and information

#WriteGoal

#WriterWednesday (or #WW or ##WW) – a way to give a shout-out to writers / suggest authors to follow, or to share writing tips, and anything else to do with writers or writing

#Writing

#WriteMotivation

#WriteTip - writing advice

#WritersLife

#WritersRoad

#WritingBlitz

#WritingParty

#WritingPrompt

#WritingSprint

#WritingTip - writing advice

#wordcount

#WroteToday

 ____________________

Marketing

Tip: search on "book reviewers" plus your genre to find accounts of book bloggers.

#author - good for self-promotion

#authors - also good for self-promotion
#ASMSG - Authors Social Media Group

#bookmarketing - posts related to marketing books

#bookworm - for reviews

#editing

#emerging authors

#fictionfriday

#fridayflash flash fiction on a Friday

#followfriday or #ff - used on a Friday to suggest people to follow to your followers. (Don’t just tweet handles, tell them why they should follow.)

#novels

#novelists

#poem

#poet

#poets
#twitterfiction - where you can tweet your latest story 140 characters at a time

____________________

Publishing Industry

#AskAgent

#AskAuthor

#AskEditor

#BookMarketing

#EBooks

#ePub

#ePublishing

#GetPublished

#HowTo

#IAN or #IAN1 (Independent Author Networking)

#Indie

#IndieAuthor

#IndiePub (or #IndiePublishing)
#MSWL - manuscript wish list. This is where agents post what they are looking for,

#PromoTip

#Publishing

#Pubtip

#PubWrite

#querytip

#SelfPub

#SelfPublishing

#tenqueries – agents share the reasons why they do or do not request manuscripts

#VSS (very short story)

#WebFic

#WebLit

#WriteTip

____________________

Chats (chats can be scheduled or ongoing)

#blacklitchat - Monthly chat featuring books by black authors. Day varies.

#LitChat - LitChat is for book lovers, readers & writers. 1-hour #litchat occurs M & W, 4 pm/EST, established January 2009 by @CarolyBurnsBass. http://litchat.com/

#MGlitchat - Thursdays at 9pm EST. The chat is organized by eight middle grade writers (and avid readers). More info: http://mglitchat.blogspot.com.

#ScreenwritingSaturday. Saturdays (all day) Moderator: @UncompletedWork.

#kidlitchat: Craft & business of writing for young people, board books up through YA. Topic or topics announced at the beginning of the chat. Moderators: @gregpincus, @bonnieadamson

Tuesdays: PST: 6 pm MST: 7 pm CST: 8 pm EST: 9 pm.

#writermoms - Women who write (and have children) can find other like-minded women through this ongoing chat.

#FoundMyAgent - Chat with agents sponsored by Writer's Digest.

#indiechat - every Tuesday at 9PM EST

#MemoirChat (every other Wednesday at 8 pm ET)

#PBLitChat (picture books only)

#PoetTues

#journchat

#kidlitchat

#litchat

#scifichat

#scribechat

#storycraft

#writechat

#PoetTues

#ScriptChat

#WriterWednesday (or #WW or ##WW)

#yalitchat young adult literature chat

#BBchat  - BookBaby chat

#ZineChat

____________________

Connect By Book Genre

#Biopic

#Book

#Comedy

#Cookbooks

#Cooking

#Crime

#DarkFantasy

#Dystopian

#Erotica

#KidLitChat

#FanFic

#Fiction

#FlashFic

#Food

#Historical

#History

#HistFic

#HistNovel

#Horror

#KidLit

#Literature

#LitFic

#MGLit (Middle Grade Lit)

#MemoirChat

#Mystery

#NonFiction

#Novel

#Paperbacks

#Paranormal

#poetry

#Recipes

#RomanceWriter

#Romance

#Romantic

#RomanticSuspense

#RWA (Romance Writers of America)

#SCBWI (Society of Children’s Books Writers and Illustrators)

#Science #Fiction

#ScienceFiction

#SciFi

#SciFiChat

#Short

#ShortStories

#Short #Stories

#ShortReads

#ShortStory

#SteamPunk

#Suspense

#TrueStories

#UrbanFantasy

#WomensFiction

#YA

 ____________________

Promotion and Connecting With Readers

#99c

#99cents

#Amazon

#AmazonKindle

#AmazonLikes

#AmazonPrime

#AmReading

#AuthorRT

#BestRead
#BookBoost

#BookBuzz

#BookBuzzr

#BookGiveaway

#BookMarketing
#BookPlugs  - 1000s of Authors Offering Tiny Writing Blurbs. It's like wine sampling but with books. Authors add #bookplugs to your promos. Prefer the author's own work.

#BookReview

#Books

#BookWorm

#Borrow

#eBook

#eReaders

#followfriday or #ff - used on a Friday to suggest people to follow to your followers. (Don’t just tweet handles, tell them why.)

#fRead0 (that’s a zero at the end – not a lower case oh)

#Free

#Freebie

#FreeBook

#FreeDownload

#FictionFriday

#FictionFridays

#FridayFlash

#FridayReads - tell people what you’re reading

#FollowFriday

#FreebieFriday

#FreeReads
#Goodread

#GoodReads

#GreatRead

#IndieThursday

#IndieTuesday

#iPad

#KDP

#KDPSelect

#Kindle

#KindleBargain

#KindleBooks

#KindleeBooks

#KindleFire

#KindleTouch

#KindleTweet

#Kobo

#LendingLibrary

#LitChat

#MustRead

#MyWANA (Writer’s community created by Kirsten Lamb)

#New

#Nook

#Novel

#Novelines

#Novelists

#Novels

#Paperbacks
#PDF1 - PAID FORWARD – A RTing tag for Books/Authors/Writers/Publishers/Agents This tag was created by Van Heerling and his Pay It Forward Team.

#Poetry

#PoetryMonth

#Pubit

#Read

#Reader

#Readers

#Reading

#Reviews

#SampleSunday

#ShortReads

#Smashwords

#Sony

#Special

#StoryFriday

#StoryTelling

#TeaserTuesday or #TeaserTues

#GreatReads

#WhatToRead

#WriteQuote

#WeekendReader

#whattoread

Tools for Building your Professional Learning Network

Tools for Building your Professional Learning Network

fashion style    9:09 PM   

10 years ago, I would really feel inspired only after having gone to a teaching workshop. With social media, I'm inspired all the time with as a constant stream of ideas and resources come to me through a latticework of networking through my Professional Learning Network, or PLN. I've learned more in the last two years of teaching than the 9 years before that, and much of that has been commensurate with building a PLN in the last two years. Instead of being a participant of workshops at our school, I'm starting to be a presenter; many of the ideas coming from things I learn online and trial in my class.

Building up a PLN is easy, but it does take time. There are many tools, but I'll share my "big 5". I don't think that ones need to use all of these tools, and in some respects, many have similar uses.

Twitter
Twitter is great for sharing resources back and forth and with so many websites having icons to "share to twitter" it becomes the ultimate micro-blogging platform. With a limited amount of characters, most of the exchanges have been short, and the limit does not allow anyone to go overboard with comments. It's a great way to increase traffic to your or other people's blogs. There are somethings that can be done to ensure more followers and build up your bases such as liking or favoriting other peoples sharing. Of course, to comment on others posts is crucial. To get a little, one must give a little too.

Edmodo
Speaking of sharing, Edmodo is a great, but I feel it is a little more "back and forth" discussion between educators. Although people do put posts on Edmodo, I think it is a little more of a forum or discussion over dilemmas that educators have or calls for suggestions. Edmodo has a number of communities that one can join and an online library that you can save resources to as well. Many teachers use Edmodo with their students as an online learning platform.

Diigo
Speaking of creating an online library, Diigo's main draw (I think) is that one can bookmark favorite posts or websites and cataloge them by tags. As I read fast and steady streams of articles, rather than save them to a bookmarks toolbar on my web browser, Diigo puts them in a library and organizes them there. I often cite articles when I blog and Diigo is a nice place to have them all. Diigo also can craft groups so if I find a math article that I'd like to share with all the math teachers at my school, I can create a group within Diigo so when I save it, all those teachers will see my bonkmark. It also has tools for putting sticky notes on web text and the ability to highlight sections which can be installed on your web browser.

Google Reader
For anyone that has a google account, Google reader makes use of RSS (Really simple subscription) buttons which look like this:

and send post to a reader as a stream of posts so you don't have to go back to the original website. I subscribe to dozens of RSS feeds and have them all on my google reader account so when I feel like reading and getting professional development, I log onto my Google reader account which looks like this:

 

Pinterest
Pinterest is similar to twitter, but gives an image to go along with posts for resources. The big allure of pinterest is that people can have different "boards" that correspond to different interests the user has. A teacher might want to put a post on their "Educator Board" but they may also have a "Cooking Board" which conveys work they do in the kitchen.

Navigating all these tools does take time, and everyone must meet it on their own learning curve. As I've connected with educators, I learn that some of them don't have an RSS widget, so I can't subscribe using google reader, so I may follow them on twitter. Or, people don't have a twitter account, but do have one on "pinterest".

How educators share with the world is a mixed bag and there are many tools to choose from. I share cool resources that I find on Twitter to communities in Edmodo. I bookmark articles from my RSS feeds on Google reader and bookmark them to Diigo. Whatever your style, consider these sites for sharing, asking for feedback and building a group of people with whom you can develop your teaching practice. Together, we can share more than ever before.

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