Announcing Sun versus Snow in 2016

To help everyone prepare, here is the information you'll need to enter Sun versus Snow. The submission for Sun versus Snow will be February 1st at 4 pm Eastern time. Act fast. We will only be taking the first 200 entries. Please do not enter early or your entry will be deleted. You can resend at the proper time if this happens accidentally.

Confirmation emails will be sent. If you don't receive one, don't resend. We don't want duplicate entries. Please check with us on twitter first to confirm your entry did or did not arrive, then you may resend.

There is only ONE, yes that's right, ONE entry per person allowed. Any attempt to cheat will result in entries being thrown out.

This contest is only for finished and polished stories. The story can't have been in the agent round of any other contest. This is to provide fresh material for the agents and to give others a chance.

Amy and I have decided not to accept picture books for this contests. Though we love picture books, contests just don't seem to be the best place to get them requests. We do accept all MG, YA, NA and Adult genres, excluding erotica.

To enter you must be followers of our blogs. Click the 'join this site' button on my blog. You can find Amy's blog here.

The Format:

Send submission to Sunversussnow (at) yahoo (dot) com. Only one submission per person is allowed. It doesn't matter if you write under different names or are submitting different manuscripts. You are still one person and get one entry. 

Here's how it should be formatted (yes, include the bolded!) Please use Times New Roman (or equivalent), 12 pt font, and put spaces between paragraphs. No indents or tabs are needed. No worries if your gmail doesn't have Times New Roman. No worries if the email messes up your format. Yes, we will still read it! :-) 

(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.)

Subject Line: SVS: TITLE, Age Category + Genre 

(example: SVS: GRUDGING, Adult Epic Fantasy)

In The Email:

Title: MY FANTASTIC BOOK (yes, caps!)

Genre: YA dystopian (Age category and genre. YA/MG is not a genre.)

Word Count: XX,XXX (round to the nearest thousand)

My Main Character would use sun or snow to battle their biggest obstacle: 

Which would your character find more helpful in fighting through their biggest obstacle--hot or cold. And why? Tell us which weather would be the most helpful to your character. 

(Can be in your MC's POV, but doesn't have to be. 100 words or less.)

Query:

Query goes here! Include greeting and main paragraphs. Please leave out bio, closing, and word count + genre sentence. You may include comps if you'd like. There is no word count limit on the query but please aim for 250 - 300 words.

First 250 words:

Here are the first 250 words of my manuscript, and I will not end in the middle of a sentence. But I will not go over 257 words. Be reasonable and don't make us count. Don't forget to space between paragraphs!

That's it for now. Get those entries ready for February 1st and leave any questions in the comments or ask on twitter.

Mentors and agents will be posted in January. As of now, we have fifteen fabulous agents!

Also stay tuned for Michelle's Free Pass. It could happen at any time. She hasn't really decided.

Happy holidays and we can't wait to get started!