Tag Archives: Twitter

#PitMad TWITTER PITCH PARTY 3/11/15

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Tomorrow is another fantastic pitch event hosted by Brenda Drake for your completed and polished manuscript. You will need a 140 character pitch that includes the #PitMad hashtag. But create several varied pitches so Twitter doesn’t think you’re spam. Also, if you can squeeze in the category and age group, it will be a plus. Such as:

  • #YA=Young adult
  • #MG=Middle Grade
  • #A=Adult (I don’t suggest spelling adult out unless you want a bunch of porn spam!)
  • #NA=New Adult
  • #F=Fantasy
  • #PR=Paranormal Romance
  • #R=Romance
  • #SF=Sci-Fi

If you work during #Pitmad, you can always use TweetDeck or Hootesuite to schedule your tweets so you won’t miss out on the opportunity. Of course, you will go bonkers trying to find a moment to peak at the twitter feed, but you’re on your own with that one.

There are more hints you can find on Brenda’s website. And don’t forget, although there are legitimate agents that have committed to stopping by, any one can troll the feed. So, DO YOUR RESEARCH before sending your manuscript or signing a contract.

As always, good luck!

P.D. Pabst
Writer and blogger of MG/YA fiction

#PubTalkTV Tonight

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If you don’t already know, PubTalkTV is a new place to get questions answered by literary agents. Authors Summer Heacock and Kelsey Macke serve as moderators while they read and ask your questions to the participating agents Monica Odom (Liza Dawson Associates), Jessica Sinsheimer (Sarah Jane Freymann Literary Agency), and Roseanne Wells (The Jennifer De Chiara Literary Agency).

PubTalkTV

So how do get in on the action? It’ll be tonight at 8:00PM EST (if they haven’t changed the time) on their website (link above). As for asking questions, form them on twitter using the #PubTalkTV hashtag during the live session and Summer and Kelsey might select yours to ask the agents.

See you there!

P.D. Pabst
Writer and blogger of MG/YA fiction

#AdPit TWITTER PITCH PARTY TODAY!

Contests, Literary, , , , , , , , , ,

I don’t write adult fiction (yet), but want to make sure any readers that do are reminded of the #AdPit Twitter party today. It’s for Adult Fiction, Adult Non-fiction, and New Adult manuscripts only. You must have a 140 character pitch that includes the #AdPit hashtag. And remember, although there are legitimate agents that have committed to dropping by, any one can troll the feed. SO DO YOUR RESEARCH before sending your manuscript or signing any contracts! Heidi Norrod is the event organizer and you can find her at @HRNorrod if you have any questions.

As always, good luck!

P.D. Pabst
Writer and blogger of MG/YA fiction

NEW LEAF PITCH PERFECT 2! (TWITTER PITCH)

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New Leaf Literary & Media, Inc

If you haven’t seen the tweets on twitter, New Leaf Literary & Media, Inc. is hosting a twitter pitch session today starting at 4pm EST! It will end at 5pm EST. So you’ve only got an hour window to get that pitch submitted!

This isn’t like other twitter pitch contests (ex: #Pitmad or #SunvsSnow) where you pitch once every half hour, this is a one time pitch deal. So, polish up that 140 character pitch to fit the hashtag #NLpitchperfect and figure out your local starting time to correspond to the EST zone. You can check out their official post regarding the pitch event here.

As always, good luck! And my apologies for the short blog notice.

P.D. Pabst
Writer and blogger of MG/YA fiction

#PITMAD, hosted by @Brenda Drake

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Don’t forget the quarterly pitch event with Brenda Drake is coming up this Thursday, December 4, 2014 on twitter under the hashtag #PitMad. If you are new to the game of writing, this is where you create a 140 character pitch for your FINISHED manuscript and tweet for agents to read. Things to remember:

  • Pitch submission time is 8am-8pm EDT (New York time)
  • You must fit the hashtag of #Pitmad within the 140 characters.
  • Include the category and genre in the 140 characters.
  • Change tweets up. (Twitter will remove identical ones thinking they are spam.)
  • DON’T FAVORITE TWEETS! This is for agents only. (If you want to support a friend, do it by retweeting.)
  • If you won’t be available this day, schedule tweets using Tweetdeck.
  • Only tweet once per thirty minutes so you don’t hog congest the feed.
  • Don’t tweet agents and editors directly unless they tweet you first.
  • Scammers can’t be controlled on an open pitch party. DO YOUR HOMEWORK before you submit from a favorite.

For additional tips, go to Brenda’s Drakes Pitmad page. As always, good luck!

P.D. Pabst
Writer and blogger of MG/YA fiction

AN AUTHORESS CONTEST

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For all writers who haven’t noticed, the lovely Authoress posted a #Blogpitch contest on her website Miss Snark’s First Victim. This starts as a logline contest on twitter in which 10 winners will be picked to get critiques. All persons leaving critiques will be entered for a chance to win a 15 page line edit from the wonderful Authoress! How cool is that?

To Qualify:

  • Follow Authoress on Twitter
  • Have an active writing-related blog (posting at least once a week)
  • Have a clean manuscript. Although it can be a work “in progress”, absolutely NO FIRST DRAFTS!

How to enter:

  • Submission window starts  noon (EDT) on Monday, June 30 and ends at noon (EDT) on Tuesday, July 1, 2014.
  • Tweet your 128 character (or fewer) logline to #BLOGPITCH on Twitter

How it works after the tweets and the dates:

  • Authoress will choose 10 favorite loglines (Announced Thursday, July 3)
  • Winners will be invited to post their logline + first 250 words ON THEIR OWN BLOGS.
  • Winners MUST send links to Authoress by Sunday, July 6.
  • Authoress will post the 10 links on BLOG CRITIQUE TOUR DAY. (Posted on Wednesday, July 9.)
  • Everyone, including winners, can visit the blogs and leave a critique. (Each critique=1 entry in drawing for a 15 page line edit from Authoress.) Critiquing starts immediately. All critiques entered by Friday, July 11, will be entered into drawing.

(Note:  All genres except erotica or erotic romance will be accepted.)

YA CONTEST ALERT-NO PITCH NECESSARY

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Having trouble writing a query or a pitch for that YA novel you’ve written? I know. I hear you screaming, “my brain rips in two trying to condense my story into a few sentences!” I feel your pain and send you a virtual hug! I understand an unfinished pitch keeps you from entering contests. You avoid them like dog poop on your sidewalk, curse them even. But I’ve discovered the perfect contest for you!

Here’s the scoop. I follow the wonderful @ChuckSambuchino (Editor of GUIDE TO LITERARY AGENTS and author of HOW TO SURVIVE A GARDEN GNOME ATTACK) on Twitter, who often contributes articles to WRITER’S DIGEST. Yesterday, he tweeted a link to Tell It Slant regarding a contest for your YA manuscript AND no pitch required! That’s worth repeating…NO PITCH REQUIRED!

Woo-Hoo!

You do need to have the first 250 words polished to submit and a $15 entry fee. But look who they say will be reading:

“YA literary agent Regina Brooks and her team will read all of the entries and determine the top 20 submissions. These submissions will then be read by Deidre Jones Little Brown, Nicole Raymond Candlewick, Annie Nybo Simon and Schuster, Mercedes Fernandez Kensington, Erica Finkel Abrams Books, Monica Jean Random House/Penguin , Stacey Friedberg Penguin Group, Catherine Laudone Simon and Schuster, Laura Whitaker Bloomsbury, Kendra Levin Viking, Anna Roberto Feiwel and Friends.

These judges will whittle the top 20 down to five, and each of the five winners will be provided commentary on their submissions.”

Go to Tell It Slant to read more about the contest guidelines and the benefits of winning. Good luck!

P.D. Pabst

Blogger and Writer of MG/YA Fiction

TIP OF THE DAY: USE YOUR REAL NAME

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Oh, Uwrite? Well, Iwrite2. Huh? U8M, I8M, They8M…those cutsie-wootsie usernames, that’s what I’m talking about. We all want to chew some words and spit out something cool. But the unspoken truth is to keep the creativity in your novels and screenplays.

There I said it. Now I’ll explain it.

It’s no secret that agents and publishers are looking more at platforms of new authors. Do you have one? Two? Three? Do you know how to promote yourself? Sure, publishers will do a lot of marketing for you, but it’s getting scarier for them to take on new talent. So, let’s say you send a query that’s wrong for a particular agent (i.e. YA to one currently wanting A), but they feel your sample pages are awesome. Perhaps they want to follow your blog, Twitter feed, Facebook page, or whatever. But alas, they can’t find you because they don’t know who IMADETHISNAMEUP is. Therefore, I suggest to use your real name, or the pseudonym you intend to publish under.

Another reason to use your real name is it helps build a fan base. Yep, I said fan. Even if you’re not published. It doesn’t hurt to build followers who might become potential buyers, or help promote your work. And if you’ve self published, how do you expect people to find your books? They’re not on Amazon under the name HIDINGHERE. Or are they?  My point, people can’t find you if they don’t know who “you” is!

And there you have a quick tip from the former IWRITE2. Use your real name!

P.D. Pabst
Blogger and Writer of YA/MG Fiction

*All names are made up and aren’t meant to depict any actual people, so, don’t go there!*