Wacky Wednesday: #Pitmad

#Pitmad is a wonderful way to meet fellow writers, get attention from publication companies and agents, and in general, to have a good time. This is a contest that happens at least twice a year, if not more often. I participated in several #Pitmad contests before landing a publication deal from the one I participated in on January 8, 2014. It is important to note that this is for completed, polished manuscripts only.

The rules are as follows.

• The tweet must be 140 characters or less, including the #Pitmad hashtag and the genre.
• #YA = Young Adult, #A = Adult, #MG = Middle Grade, #NA = New Adult, #PB = Picture Book, and #NF = Non-Fiction. Make sure to include the genre! Some agents will choose to filter by genre, and you don't want to miss out on being chosen because you left this part out.
• The contest runs from 8AM to 8PM EST.
• If your tweet is favorited by an agent, go to their twitter feed and find their submission guidelines and submit your manuscript!
• DO NOT FAVORITE IF YOU ARE NOT AN AGENT. You will disappoint fellow contesters because they'll think you're an agent. RETWEET instead if you are not an agent to support others.
• Only tweet twice per hour per manuscript. Otherwise, you will spam the feed and annoy people, which you do not want to do in the publishing business.

That's it! The upcoming #Pitmad is going to be on March 25! I won't be participating this round because I've already got my publishing deal, but best of luck to the other aspiring authors out there!

Also, if you're going to participate, I HIGHLY recommend you write your query letter and synopsis beforehand. Chances are you'll be asked for one of, if not both of them, and you want to send your emails out as soon as possible so you'll hear back faster and your pitch is fresh on the agent/publishing company's mind!

Read more here on Brenda Drake's website. (She's one of the hosts. Send her love!)