Picture Book Party Submissions 2016 and Twitter Party

Submission is coming! It is Sunday, July 10th at noon. Don't send too early or your entry will be deleted. I wanted to put up a refresher of the submission rules and entry format.

The agent round will be July 20 - 22nd. See the list of agents here. 

The Rules:

Please be a follower of this blog or sign up for my newsletter. You can click the "Join this Site" button in the right sidebar. Please follow @Michelle4Laughs on twitter. I imagine I 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. They should be in different emails. 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.) 

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 picture book or chapter book 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: @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
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.

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. 


Now for the twitter party fun! Visit daily under the hashtag #PBParty to meet and greet and scout out slush hints.

Sunday, July 10th         Tell us what genre you write and when you entered.

Monday, July 11th        What is your favorite place to write? Share your writing quirks.

Tuesday, July 12th    What is your favorite picture/chapter book?

Wednesday, July 13th       Animal, vegetable, mineral. Tell us if your MC is human or something else.

Thursday, July 14th           What picture/chapter book author would you like to meet, living or dead?

Friday, July 15th        What picture book character would you like to be?

Saturday, July 16th            What's your best writing advice?

Sunday, July 17th          Look for CP partners and make more friends.


Sharon and I are not sure when the picks will be announced, but it should be around Friday. We are so excited for the fun to start. As you've probably noticed we have a great group of agents and editors.

Good luck everyone!