Last Minute Contest

I’ve said I’m done with contests, that I’m going to stick to just querying (where I tend to have more success). But I’ve also read so many success stories about writers who found their agents through contests. So many of these writers say that they weren’t sure their manuscript was ready, or that they weren’t really in a contest mode, but they entered at the last minute and—VIOLA!—they get into the contest and sign with an agent. It’s like winning the lottery, maybe a bit more likely, but it has to happen to someone, right?

So last weekend I entered Brenda Drake’s Pitch Madness contest at the (sort of) last minute. I plucked a pitch from earlier contests, modified it a bit, and submitted it with my manuscript’s first 250 words. I was so distracted at the time that I don’t even remember a confirmation page for my entry.

With so much going on in my non-writing life, I didn’t have time to follow the contest feed on Twitter. That was probably a good thing, as I’ve found that all these feeds do is make me nervous and tense. Those reading contest entries do their best to give advice, but also to make teases as vague as possible so as to give the most writers hope that their entries will be picked. Because I wasn’t watching the feed, the week or so before the announcement of the contest winners passed quickly.

Rumor has it that there were 900+ entrants into the contest (or some such incredibly high number). With only 60 spots available, that meant not a whole lot of writers got in. My hopes weren’t high (because, as previously stated, I do better querying than contesting), but I still had to check the winners when they were posted.

I didn’t get in.

I’m not surprised for several reasons. First, my manuscript is much easier to pitch in three or so paragraphs than in 35 words. Also, my first 250 words don’t have a hook at the end; my hook comes at the end of the first chapter, with stuff building up to it that starts in the first 250 words. And like I said, I wasn’t part of the party on Twitter. As much as they say you don’t have to be super active on the internet to get into these contests, I’ve learned that it helps your chances if you are.

But no worries about this loss. I’m doing what I always do when I don’t get into contests like this: I’m taking down the list of agents and sending them queries. Like I said, I have more success when I do that than when I enter contests. So we’ll see what happens.