May 2017 Contest Roundup

It’s Roundup time again! For this month’s list I’ve found a couple of critique giveaways from agents. Query critiques can be really helpful so I encourage all of you that are polishing those queries to give those contests a go. There are a lot of pitch days coming up too. Some are genre specific, which can be a good thing! It does look like we’ve got something for pretty much every genre coming up. (I could not find anything for illustrators. Sorry guys.) Or maybe you’d like to have a mentor. (Who wouldn’t?) There are a couple of mentorship opportunities coming up as well.

Want to talk contest entries? You’re always welcome to post in the comments, or hop on over and start a discussion in our Sub It Club Submission Support Group!

As usual, contests are listed by closing date. Here we go…

May:

5/5: Daily Main/Penguin Random House Crime-Writing Competition – Open to writers in the UK or Republic of Ireland who have never published a novel before. Open to Crime and Thrilller novels. Submit the first 5000 words of your novel along with a 600 word synopsis. Winner to receive a £20,000 advance and publishing contract with Century, an imprint of Penguin Random House UK, and the services of literary agent Luigi Bonomi.

5/6: Inklings Literary Agency Critique Giveaway – 5 winners to receive critiques of their query letter plus the first 250 words of their manuscript from 3 agency interns. Entry via Rafflecopter.

5/13: Query Critique from Agent Lauren Spieller – Agent is open to Picture Books, Middle Grade, and Young Adult. Comment on the post to enter.

5/15: Michelle’s Query Kombat Free Pass – Open to Middle Grade, Yound Adult, New Adult, and Adult manuscripts. Leave a blog post comment and enter via Rafflecopter to win and entry into Query Kombat.

5/15: Laura’s Query Kombat Free Pass – Open to marginalized writers. Middle Grade, Young Adult, New Adult, and Adult manuscripts. Leave a blog post comment and enter via Rafflecopter to win and entry into Query Kombat.

5/17 – 19: Query Kombat – Open to Middle Grade, Yound Adult, New Adult, and Adult
manuscripts. 30 participating agents. Enter your query and first 250 words.

5/17: Spring WOW’em Pitchfest – Read the participating agents and publishers bios to see what they are looking for. Post your 3 line pitch in the blog comments. Also see the pitch rules.

5/18: #PitDark – Open to Adult, New Adult, Young Adult, and Middle Grade horror and darker writing (horror novels, dark fantasy, murder mysteries, psychological horror stories, non-fiction works about darker subjects, etc.) Pitch your manuscript via Twitter using the #PitDark hashtag between 8am and 8pm EST. See link for additional hashtags and a list of participating agents.

June:

6/7: #pg70pit – Open to Middle Grade, Young Adult, New Adult, and Adult manuscripts. Enter your word count, genre, and 70th page of your manuscript. Winners to move onto an agent round. There is also a Twitter entry round.

6/8: #PitMad – Open to all genres. Pitch your manuscript via Twitter using the #PitMad hashtag between 8am & 8pm EDT. Only pitch 3 times per project.

6/22: #SFFpit – Open to works of fantasy or science fiction. All age categories (PB, MG, YA, NA, and adult). Pitch your manuscript via Twitter using the #SFFpit hashtag between 8am and 6pm EST. 10 tweets in total per participant.

6/22: #PBPitch – Open to picture books. Pitch your manuscript via Twitter using the #PBPitch hashtag between 8am and 8pm EST.

6/28: #FaithPitch – Open to “completed Fiction that falls under the categories of inspirational, faith-based, biblical worldview, or Christian.” Picture book through Adult categories. Pitch your manuscript via Twitter using the #FaithPitch hashtag between 8am and 8pm CST. See the contest page for a list of age category and genre hashtags.

Upcoming:

8/2-6: Pitch Wars – Submit your query letter and 1-3 page synopsis. Chosen winners will work with a mentor to prepare for an agent round in November.

8/15: Pockets Fiction Contest – Open to stories for children of 750-1000 words. Winner to receive $500 and publication in Pockets Magazine.

Know of any great contests I missed? Please link us up in the comments!