Monday, May 9, 2011

May Secret Agent Early Info

Please note: This is NOT the call for submissions! The contest will open NEXT Monday, May 16.

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES (please read carefully):

* There will be TWO SEPARATE SUBMISSION WINDOWS. Each window will be open for 2 hours and will receive a maximum of 25 entries. This is to accommodate my other-side-of-the-globe readers.
* SUBMISSION WINDOW #1: Monday, May 16, NOON to 2:00 PM EDT or 25 entries, WHICHEVER COMES FIRST.
* SUBMISSION WINDOW #2: Monday, May 16, 7:00 to 9:00 PM EDT or 25 entries, WHICHEVER COMES FIRST.
* 2 alternates will be chosen from the second submission window.
* PLEASE NOTE: You are responsible for figuring out your own time zone. "Time Zone differences" are NOT a reason for not getting your entry in.
* Submissions received before the contest opens will be rejected.
* Submissions are for COMPLETED MANUSCRIPTS ONLY. If you wouldn't want an agent to read the entire thing, DON'T SEND IT. If an "entire thing" doesn't exist, you shouldn't even be reading these rules.
* Manuscripts THAT HAVE BEEN IN A SECRET AGENT CONTEST DURING THE PAST SIX MONTHS (November-April) will not be accepted.
* You may submit A DIFFERENT MANUSCRIPT if you've participated in any previous Secret Agent contests.
* Only ONE ENTRY per person per contest. If you send more than one, your subsequent entry(ies) will be rejected.
* If you are a PAST WINNER, please DO NOT ENTER THIS CONTEST. (Unless it's a different manuscript.)
* Submissions are for THE FIRST 250 WORDS of your manuscript. Please do not stop in the middle of a

Your submission for this contest should be formatted EXACTLY as follows:

SCREEN NAME: Your Screen Name Here
TITLE: Your Title Here
GENRE: Your Genre Here

(Followed by the excerpt here.)

* No "chapter one," chapter titles, etc.
* You will receive a confirmation email with your post number.
* Submissions go to authoress.submissions(at)gmail.com. They DO NOT GO to my facelesswords address. Or any other address.
*PLAIN TEXT is your best bet! And if you receive a rejection notice that claims you didn't include TITLE, etc., please TYPE THE SCREEN NAME, TITLE, AND GENRE BY HAND and resubmit. (In other words, don't copy and paste that part.)
*It doesn't matter what you put in the subject line. The only thing you MUST NOT do is to use "RE:" The bot will think you are attempting to respond to an email, and will reject you.

As always, there is no fee to enter the Secret Agent contest.

This month's contest will include the following genres:

  • MG (including SFF)
  • YA (including SFF)
Questions below.

14 comments:

  1. Wish everyone luck with getting through. :)

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  2. I think this is the one I'll take the plunge and try and enter! I probably won't get through, but worth a try for sure :)

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  3. This is exciting! Maybe I will try to enter. I will probably chicken out.

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  4. Wow, it's going to be crazy. Makes me glad I can't enter. The anticipation would do me in. :D

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  5. Yay! Assuming I can figure out my time zone, I'm there, baby! :)

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  6. Oh, darn, not my genres.

    Good luck to everyone who qualifies.

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  7. Question: could I enter a manuscript that's been in a different critique round, not Secret Agent?

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  8. Yep! So long as it wasn't in the past 2 months or so.

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  9. Hope I can get plain text on my email account this time--Trying gmail, it looks cleaner. fingers crossed.
    Anyone have suggestions on how to use "plain text"?

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  10. Gmail is a good choice. Make sure you've switched to "plain text" mode from the body of the email.

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  11. I copy and paste from Word into Livejournal (html option) as if I'm going to make a post. That strips out the code. Then I just past from LJ into my e-mail. I haven't tried it with Blogger or Wordpress, but I assume it would work the same way. It's the easiest (and most permanent!) of the many ways I've tried to strip out code.

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  12. I'm glad I found out about this. Sounds like fun!

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  13. Holy COW I think that I finally got into this one! This is awesome! I think that my neighbors don't like me much right now though. (hee hee)

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