C.M. McCoy's Blog

#FicFest YA Team #1 – Scotland GIVEAWAY: Silver & Diamond Trinit...

#FicFest – A Pitch Contest for Writers

What is #FicFest?

#FicFest is an online pitch contest for writers looking for an agnet. This is an opportunity for you to get your manuscript in front of over 2 dozen literary agents.

Your submission will consist of your query and first chapter.

#FicFest, unlike most pitching contests, is open to manuscripts in ALL genres (including those usually excluded such as Paranormal Romance or Erotica), and it’s open to ALL age categories: Picture Book, Middle Grade, Young Adult, New Adult, and Adult.

Sixty manuscripts will be selected by #FicFest mentors from the pool of entries. Forty-five of those manuscripts will be earmarked for the agent round. Fifteen will be held as alternates in case a one of the forty-five withdraws from the contest.

The forty-five “finalist” authors will receive editing suggestions from an agented/published author or a seasoned editor and will work on revisions for 8 weeks before the agent round. During the agent round, participating agents may request a partial or full manuscript from as many authors as they want with no limits and no bidding.

#FicFest mentors are structured into fifteen (15) separate teams, with 3 teams in each age category. Each team is comprised of a team leader, and two (2) team members. Once the submissions open, each team will choose three (3) finalist manuscripts and one (1) alternate manuscript. This means that an equal number of manuscripts for each age category will move to the agent round. (For example, there are 3 YA teams of 3 mentors each, which means there will be 9 YA manuscripts in the agent round. There will be 9 Picture Book manuscripts, 9 MG, and so on…)

One of the things that sets #FicFest apart from other contests is this uniform number of manuscripts in each age category moving to the agent round. Where most other contests send a majority of YA manuscripts to the final round, #FicFest offers an equal opportunity to writers of other age categories to get this coveted agent visibility.

Approximately two dozen agents will participate in #FicFest.

Entering #FicFest? Want to be my mentee??

Here’s how:

✔ Follow the entry instructions on the Host Blog

✔ Have a YA novel (I’m mentoring a YA author)

✔ Write an intriguing hook. It should be in your first paragraph of your pitch (or your query letter).

It should give me your audience (An eternal skeptic, 18-year-old Henrietta…)
It should give me your MC’s goal–BONUS points for irony (…enrolls in ParaScience University…)
It should give me your MC’s obstacle (…only to find her roommate is a banshee–)
Bonus if you can inject some voice (–a for-real, no-kidding harbinger of death–)
Close with a creative, concise “tell me more” plot summary (who’s just predicted Henrietta’s murder at the hands of an undead professor.)

✔ Follow that with a magnetic first page, and I’ll be beating down your eDoor. :-)