Monday, April 15, 2013

April Secret Agent Early Info


Please note: This is NOT the call for submissions! The contest will open next Monday, April 22.

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES (please read carefully):

*There are TWO WAYS to enter: a) via email to authoress.submissions(at)gmail.com OR via web form at msfv.thoughbin.org
* THIS WILL BE A LOTTERY: The submission window will be open from NOON to 5:00 PM EDT.  Once the submission window is closed, the bot will randomly choose the winning entries.
* 2 alternates will also be accepted, for a total of 52 entries.
* 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 (October-March) 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 WON A CONTEST WITHIN THE PAST 12 MONTHS (i.e., offered any kind of prize from a Secret Agent), 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

GO HERE to submit via our web form.

If you choose to submit via email, 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 lottery number.
* Submissions go to authoress.submissions(at)gmail.com. They DO NOT GO to my facelesswords address. Or any other address.
*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:

  • literary fiction
  • upmarket women's fiction
  • memoir
  • YA (all genres)

10 comments:

  1. Hi, did I miss announcement of the Picture Book critique winner from last week?

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  2. Hmm. What exactly is "upmarket WF"? I have a completed novel similar to the Mitford series. Would that qualify?

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  3. This is great. Very excited to see this forum move away from being just YA and going into other areas of writing. Can't wait!

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  4. Just a note to say that it looks like the Secret Agent submission window was only set-up to go from 11 AM to Noon instead of noon to 5 pm (at least via the Submission Form).

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  5. Hi - entry is getting kicked back, but post here is saying the contest is open from noon-5:00 EDT. Any suggestions?

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  6. I noted the same thing. I'm going to send an e-mail directly to the Authoress to let her know what's going on.

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  7. I tried both methods. The web was closed and my email got kicked back saying the contest closed at 11:00am MDT.

    According to the EDT clock it's 3:24pm.

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  8. ?? "The submission window will be open from NOON to 5:00 PM EDT."

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