Show the Love and Pitch-A-Partner in PAPfest

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 MarcyKate Connolly and Mindy McGinnis. In imagining pitching my novel and MarcyKate'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 we announced an upcoming agent-judged contest called the PAPfest (Pitch-A-Partner Festival). As always, the PAP is sneaking up on you quicker than you thought. Mindy will be the primary host on Writer, Writer, Pants on Fire, while MarcyKate and I will be co-hosting, because that's only fitting.

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 down the final hopefuls 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 Mindy.

Are you confused? That's OK. We believe in multiple learning styles, so we'll lay this out a few different ways. But first, the nitty-gritty:

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 8 PM EST
Each window will allow 50 email entries

The PAP team of myself, MarcyKate and Mindy 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. Also 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 14th 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. We commissioned original art from Lynn Phillips to immortalize them. (Click to enlarge the image.)

As if the fabulous portraits you've seen aren't enough, we asked Lynn to reiterate the process for those who learn best through comics. Enjoy!