Tuesday, September 1, 2015

September Picture Book Party


We are doing it again! (And yes I recycled this post. So much to do. No time for fresh material.)Spunky. Adorable. Heartwarming.

Those are some of the words that describe picture/chapter books. I'm happy to join with Sharon Chriscoe to do a little something for a group that is left out of most contests. This mini-contest is for you!

And if you don't write picture/chapter books please don't run away. I NEED YOUR HELP NOTIFYING PICTURE BOOK WRITERS. This contest is such short notice that I need everyone to spread the word. Tell your friends who write PB and please post on twitter. Also the twitter party will be for everyone, so I hope to see you there under the hashtag #PBParty. There will be daily topics that apply to all writers during the submission week.

So far there are four picture book agents and two editors on board.  The agent round will be September 23th-25th. The submission day is September 14th at 4:00 pm Eastern time. Then Sharon and I will go through the entries and pick our favorites. I'm not sure how many entries will be chosen, but the number will be between 15 and 20. Sharon is my expert on this as I don't know much about picture books, except I enjoy reading them.

The Rules:

Please be a follower of this blog. You can click the "Join this Site" button in the left sidebar. Please follow myself and Sharon on twitter. I imagine we will be tweeting hints as well as partying!

You may send two entries for different manuscripts. That's two and only two, whether you have multiple pen names or multiple email addresses. Please be honest and not send more. Only one entry will be chosen per person. If you send two, still only one will be picked. Any attempt to cheat will result in entries thrown out (and sadly it has happened in the past.) 

On September 14th at 4:00 pm Eastern the submission window opens. Do not send early or your entry will be deleted. You may resend at the correct time if this happens. I'm recycling an email address as I already have too many. Please send your entry to SunversusSnow at yahoo dot com

You should receive a confirmation email. If you do not, please contact me on twitter before resending. The window will stay open until we get 250 entries. However long that takes. It could be minutes or it could be days. I'm really not sure on this one.

This contest is only for finished and polished manuscripts. It has to be ready to go out to agents.

The Format:

Subject Line of your Email: PBParty: Title

Example:  PBParty: Hot Tub Santa

Inside the email please bold where bolded in my example. Single space with spaces between paragraphs. Use Times New Roman or equivalent font and the size should be 12. 

(Here's a trick to keep your paragraph spacing: copy and paste your entry into your email and then put in the line spaces. They seem to get lost when you copy and paste. It may look right but sending scrambles the spacing.)

Name: Sharon Chriscoe
Twitter Handle: @schriscoe_
Title: HOT TUB SANTA
Genre: (Here please tell us what type of picture book this is) Example: Board Book, Bedtime Rhyme, Nonfiction, Biography, etc. or List Chapter Book
Word Count: xxx (round to nearest ten, hundred for chapter books)

Query:

Your entire query letter here. Include your comps, bio, greeting, closing. (You may use whatever you want for a greeting. Dear Agent. Dear Michelle and Sharon.) 

Here is your chance to make your entry shine and make the agent fall in love with your words. 

First 50 Words:

Include your first 50 words for a picture book, 100 words for chapter books. Do not stop in the middle of a sentence. You may go over by one or two words to finish a sentence but not more than five. Single space and put spaces in between paragraphs. You may center or tab if appropriate.

Edit: For short picture books, less than 50 words may be submitted. Any count under 50 is allowed.

Also I will delete parts of entries after the contest ends, if requested. For those writers uncomfortable with their work being out there for all to see.  


Bonus: You may attach one illustration to your email to show an example of your artwork. If you don't have artwork, don't worry. 




I would like to thank Mel Stephenson for creating our logo artwork! Be sure to follow her at@paintandwords

That should cover about everything, but you may leave questions in the comments or on twitter. Don't forget the #PBParty hashtag.

We can't wait to see all the cuteness on September 14th! 

28 comments:

  1. Can writers who got selected during the previous PBParty submit at this party?

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  2. Will you be posting the entries online? Also, will you be releasing the names of the agents so potential participants can decide if they are a good fit or not? Thanks.

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    1. We will do a post with the agents, once we have them all sorted out. We are still getting replies back. And yes, the query letters and 50 words will be posted on the blog for the agents to read. You are free to send less than 50 words if that amount makes you uncomfortable.

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    2. Thank you for clarifying. I wasn't exaclty sure how things worked for this challenge. You have been helpful.

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  3. Thank you for the opportunity! Fun, fun!

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  4. Sounds like a fantastic opportunity. Thank you.

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  5. Sounds fun. Thanks for the opportunity.

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  6. Do Illustrator notes in italics count as words?

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    1. I believe for the last contest we decided they did count. Thanks for asking!

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    1. Good questions. Comparison books or maybe complementary. Books that are similar in some way to yours.

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  8. Just an FYI--It is Rosh Hashanah on Sept. 14 (On the West Coast--the timing isn't the best since it will be midday here).

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    1. Sorry about that. I recommend a website called Letter Me Later. You can schedule your entry and they email it for you.

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  9. Thanks for the Letter Me Later recommendation - have 2 emails set up for 4pm Eastern Time - hope it actually works!!

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  10. This is brilliant, Michelle...I missed #PBParty last year...I've got it marked in RED on my calendar this time around. ;) Thanks for a great opportunity to get our work in front of the pros!

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  11. I'm looking forward to tomorrow's #PBParty, Michelle. Thanks for thinking of us PB writers!

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  12. Okay, I've set up my Letter Me Later, just hoping I've got my times worked out correctly. Thanks for the tip that it was happening and I look forward to being part of it. See you on Twitter!

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  13. I've set up Letter me Later as well since I am in a meeting at that time. Thanks for the recommendation.

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  14. I sent two within seconds of each other at 4:00 Eastern, got an auto-response for the first, but not the second. Does that mean the second never arrived? Should I resend?

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    1. Same here! I hope it went through!

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    2. I sent a tweet to Michelle. It seems that confirmations got overwhelmed.

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    3. Thanks for the update! I'm not on Twitter, so I really appreciate it!

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  15. This happened to me also, and my helpful husband sent it again because he thought I'd sent it too early.Since I'm not on Twitter, he wanted to be sure it went through. Sorry about that!

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  16. Just a reassurance, everyone who checked with me yesterday on twitter about their entries, was in the inbox. There were all there, but sometimes the email confirmation didn't arrive. The only exception was someone who used letter me later and they got to resend.

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