Picture Book Party 2019

We are doing it again! Spunky. Adorable. Heartwarming.

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

Tell your friends and please post on Twitter, Facebook, and in your writing groups. Spread the word, help aspiring authors, and celebrate picture books! 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. I'd love for you to suggest some topics in the comments. It's going to be a fun week!

Edit: Just to clarify this isn't a twitter pitching contest. Instead your entries are sent to the hosts by email and we pick a variety of genres for the agents/editors to read on my blog. What happens on the twitter hashtag #PBParty is an actual party, where we celebrate our writing and picture books with a variety of topics to talk about. Topics change each day. Examples include: share your favorite picture book. Share where you get your writing inspiration. And so on.  

The agent round will be Wednesday, March 27th - Friday, March 29th. The submission day is Tuesday, March 19th at 4:00 pm Eastern time. 

The window will stay open at least one hour. That way no one has to rush. 

Then Sharon, Mindy and I will go through the entries and pick our 20 favorites. We just might add a few additional ones--the amazing submissions make it hard to narrow down our final choices!  

The Rules:

Please be a follower of this blog. You can click the "Follow" button in the left sidebar under the Followers app. Or if that is stubborn and won't work, you can subscribe to my newsletter or follow @Michelle4Laughs and @MindyAlyseWeiss on twitter. We will be tweeting hints and advice 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 March 19 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 or Mindy on Twitter before resending. Please note that your second submission will likely NOT receive confirmation. That does not mean it wasn't received. Just that our vacation notification only works once. Chill. If we got your first, we got the second. 

Remember: We want to get a good count of entries and duplicates make that harder. The window will stay open at least one hour in order to avoid the crush of entries and flooding us with requests to check for entries.

This contest is for unagented writers and writer/illustators with finished and polished manuscripts. They must be ready to submit if requested by an agent or editor. 

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. Note: We will still read your entry if you mess up the formatting.)

Name: Sharon Chriscoe
Twitter Handle: @extracleansanta (optional)
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 If this is OWNVOICES, please say so here!
Word Count: xxx (round to nearest ten, hundred for chapter books)

Query:

Your entire query letter here. Include your comps, bio, greeting, closing. Please be sure to note diversity and ownvoices in the query as well. (You may use whatever you want for a greeting. Dear Agent. Dear Michelle, Sharon, and Mindy.)

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. We love artwork. If you don't have artwork, don't worry.


That should cover about everything, but you may leave questions in the comments or on Twitter. Please no DMs or emails. Don't forget the #PBParty hashtag.

And don't forget to leave your suggestion of a topic for our twitter party!

We can't wait to see all the heartwarming cuteness on March 19th!