Ousted

They posted the results of the pitch round for the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award Contest today. I did not make it. This is the first time of the five times I've entered that I've not made this first round. Am I shocked? I have to admit, a little. I've used pretty much the same pitch the last four times. It was bound to eventually fail me.

Maybe I was a bit over confident.

This round of course tells nothing of what kind of writer I am. It only tells that my pitch was worse than 400 other YA entrants. Oh well. Moving forward. Here are my plans:

• Wait for editor to finish reading An Unbalanced Line. If she rejects, that is the novel I'm planning to self pub. If she wants it, revise Lockdown and self pub.
• Revise Dissection and send back to agent that wants to read it. If she doesn't want it, self pub.
• Continue working on other books, Rumpelstiltskin retelling, post apocalyptic YA and other things I've started. I need to buckle down and get some of these written.
• Continue with side projects.

No matter what book it be, I am going to self pub this year. I cannot fathom the idea of not having a book out for another two to three years.

I congratulate and wish all the contestants still in ABNA the best of luck.

Submissions

No, not that kind of submission.

So, you landed an agent. They want you to make a few changes. A few, HAHAHAHAHA, it is to laugh. Okay, they want you to make MAJOR changes. Some of them want this before they will even sign you, some of them, if they really don't see any major flaws with the manuscript will sign you before the changes (if you're lucky). Remember, save your manuscripts under different names (1.0, 2.0, or whatever floats your boat) just in case you make changes and they decide they like the previous version better.

I had an agent for Dena Powers: Superhero? She was a sweet girl with high hopes and big dreams. She had interned at a NY agency after graduating college.

I had to put together a cover letter, manuscript, and author photo for my publisher submissions. Plus I (we did this together) had to research and find out what they wanted from agents. I paid the printing, I paid the shipping. I'm sure this must be standard. (maybe not?)

We sent out to about fourteen total. We heard back from three when my agent quit the business. So, that's my experience subbing to pubs. Not ideal. Maybe other's experiences have been different/better.

Of course, having looked back at the manuscript a couple months ago, I said to myself WTF? No wonder they didn't take it. It needs serious work.

Kisses

:*

Megan