Let’s get real—pitching our nov­els is tough. Often beyond tough. Per­son­ally, I find it a lot eas­ier to talk about the amaz­ing work of my cri­tique part­ners Mindy McGin­nis and RC Lewis. In imag­in­ing pitch­ing my novel and RC’s to her stu­dents, Mindy had a thought … hey—EVERYONE should prac­tice pitch­ing by pitch­ing other people’s stuff! And so our con­test idea was born.

Last month, I posted a heads up about the upcom­ing Pitch-A-Partner Fes­ti­val that Mindy McGin­nis, RC Lewis, and myself are run­ning. Mindy will be the pri­mary host on Writer, Writer, Pants on Fire, while RC and I will be co-hosting, because that’s only fitting. Well, it’s almost here! And now with more details and illustrations!

Sure, there’s lots of blog con­tests out there. Ours is a lit­tle bit…different. In our model, writ­ers will pitch their cri­tique partner’s project, and our team will decide whose pitch­ing abil­i­ties are so strong that we’re inter­ested in see­ing their own project.

The blog­ging team will nar­row the final hope­fuls down to 30 entries, at which point we’ll ask our par­tic­i­pat­ing agents to cruise our blogs to bid on projects that catch their eye.

What Are the Rules?

• The PAPfest is open to com­pleted MG & YA projects of any genre
• Be sure to have your CP’s per­mis­sion before pitch­ing them
• If CP-X suc­cess­fully pitches CP-Y, we will ask to see the query and first 5 pages of CP-X’s ms to use in deter­min­ing who moves on to agent judging
• 100 ini­tial entries accepted
• 30 final­ists move on to agent judging
• Final­ists will pro­vide query & first 200 words for agent judg­ing. Their part­ner CP-Y has the option of request­ing a query cri­tique from the PAP team of myself, Mar­cyKate and RC.

Are you con­fused? That’s OK. We’re here to walk you through this con­test, hold your hands, wipe your brow, bring you ice chips and breathe right along with you. All kinds of fun things are in store to clar­ify your ques­tions. We mean that. We intend to amuse the hell out of you while explain­ing this contest.

What’s the Timeline?

• There will be two win­dows to pitch your CP’s project to PAPfest(at)gmail(dot)com
• The first win­dow will open Wednes­day, Jan 23 at 8 AM EST
• The sec­ond win­dow will open Fri­day, Jan 25 at 6 PM EST
• Each win­dow will allow 50 email entries

The team of Myself, Mindy McGin­nis, and RC Lewis will be read­ing the entries between Jan 29 — Feb 8. If you are one of the 30 final­ists you will be noti­fied by Feb 8 via email. If you are cho­sen you will pro­vide your query & first 200 words for agent judg­ing. If you are cho­sen, your CP who gra­ciously allowed you to use their project as pitch­ing mate­r­ial, will have the option of request­ing a query cri­tique from the PAP team.

Feb­ru­ary 14^th from 9 AM EST to 9 PM EST (Hooray! V-DAY!) The agents will be invited to browse the entries and make requests. They will vote for their favorites with a par­tial or full request. Every­one who receives requests will be able to sub­mit their mate­ri­als to all the agents who voted for them.

Can Guys Get a PAP?

Why yes, yes they can. In fact, we’d love to see that.

Who are the Agents?

Agents par­tic­i­pat­ing in the PAPfest are:

• Laura Brad­ford of Brad­ford Literary
• Jen­nifer Laugh­ran of Andrea Brown Literary
• Pooja Menon of Kim­ber­ley Cameron
• Adri­ann Ranta of Wolf Lit­er­ary
• Suzie Townsend of New Leaf Literary
• Tina Wexler of ICM

Isn’t that spec­tac­u­lar? Aren’t we so glad that we have them? Yes, we are. In fact, we’re so glad that we com­mis­sioned some orig­i­nal art from Lynn Phillips to immor­tal­ize them.

So, Wait, Seri­ously, How Does It Work?

Here’s an illus­trated guide we hope will help clear up any con­fu­sion. Enjoy! (and if you have ques­tions, please do ask in the comments!)