PitchWars: Behind the Scenes

For those of you who follow me, you may have noticed me talking about Pitch Wars. Once or twice. For more info on it, check out Brenda’s post here.

For those who submitted to me, please keep going. I have a lot to say to you.

First, some submission stats:

Receieved 80 submissions (I said on Twitter I had 79, but it’s because I missed one.)

30 Contemporaries

10 Fantasies

10 Thriller

9 Sci-Fi

5 Horror

4 Suspense/Mystery

2 Speculative

2 Urban Fantasy

2 Supernatural/Paranormal

1 Dystopian

1 Historical

1 Space Opera

1 Magical Realism

2 Wrong Category

Of those, my requests so far are:

11 Contemporaries

3 Thrillers

2 Sci-Fis

1 Supernatural/Paranormal

1 Horror

Second, I want to thank everyone who submitted to me. It’s my first year mentoring in PitchWars and I somehow managed to get 80 of you to submit to me. Which is about 75 more submissions than I actually expected to get. Thank you for trusting me with your words and sharing your manuscripts with me. There are so many I want and so many I feel could benefit from the contest. But I have to take the one I feel I can help the most.

If you haven’t gotten a request from me (yet):

I have 23 submissions in my maybe folder that I’ll be going over again in the following days. More full requests may go out, it all depends. Some of them in the maybe folder were really, really strong. There are a lot of fantasies and sci-fis I’m considering requesting fulls on still.

There are submissions in my not for me folder. Some of these submissions I see mentors talking about as being some of their top contenders. I personally wish all 80 of you would get picked for the contest, but there’s a lot of stiff competition. So many of you brought your A-game and it’s a hundred times harder having to choose than I thought it would be. Like I mentioned in my Pitch Wars bio, I’m going to try to send feedback to anyone who submitted to me, even if it’s just a couple lines about your entry.

If I requested a full from you:

So far I’ve requested 18 fulls. I can’t take all of you onto the agent round. Mainly because other mentors won’t let me. If I requested a full from you and you don’t make it into the contest, I will be giving you some kind of feedback. Some may be general, others may be edit letters. Since there are 18 of you, it could take a while, but it will happen.

To everyone who submitted: You guys are amazing. There are fantastic entries this year. Mentors are talking behind the scenes about how hard it is to pick only one. Pitch Wars is a huge endeavor. It’s a lot of work, even if you don’t get picked. I hope you guys remember that this isn’t the only avenue to publishing. I got my agent from my query. In fact, I was only ever in one writing contest, and it didn’t lead to anything. Some poeple who get picked for Pitch Wars may not get requests during the agent round. It happens. No matter what, I urge you guys not to give up.

Remember: your words matter and I’m so thankful you chose me to share them with.