Guidelines for Nightmare on Query Street (Contest Starts TOMORROW!!!)

ARE YOU READY?

The submission window opens at 12 noon (EST) on SATURDAY, October 19th! The window will close at 8pm or when we receive 100 entries, so please send early, but not before 12 noon. Too early entries will be deleted.

We are accepting all age categories and genres, excluding picture books and exotica. Despite the title of the contest, your book does not have to be horror (hehehe).

Michelle, Mike, and I will make ten picks each for our teams, and those ten picks will go up on our blogs from October 25th through the 27th, where agents will make requests! Check the NINE agents to see if they accept your genre.  

To participate, you have to be following all our blogs (Michelle, Mike, and mine).

The Format:

Send your one and only submission to nightmareonquerystreet (at) yahoo (dot) com. Only one submission per email address or person is allowed.

Here's how it should be formatted (yes, include the bolded and everything!) Please use Times New Roman (or equivalent), 12 pt font, and put spaces between paragraphs. No indents or tabs are needed. No worries if your gmail doesn't have Times New Roman. 

Subject Line: NOQS: TITLE, Age Category + Genre 

(example: NOQS: PYGMY HAZARDS, MG Fantasy (that's Michelle's book which got her her agent!)

In The Email:

Title: MY FANTASTIC BOOK (yes, caps!)

Genre: Adult contemporary (Age category and genre. YA/MG is not a genre.)

Word Count: XX,XXX

My Main Character's Greatest Fear:  (no, you don't have to include this awesome smiley (in fact, please don't, it'll mess with formatting :D).

My MC fears potatoes. (Can be in your MC's POV, but doesn't have to be. 100 words or less.) Make it as awesome of a pitch as possible. These should be FANTASTIC guys!!! I, at least, will be looking heavily at these pitch paragraphs. Don't take it lightly (but do have fun with it; I like fun pitches).

Query:

Here is my fantastic query! Include it all, even the bio, greeting, closing (but not an individual agent's name).

First 250 words:

Here are the first 250 words of my manuscript, and I will not end in the middle of a sentence, even if I hit 259 words :)

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Conformation emails will be sent. If you don't get one, ask one of us on twitter. Submissions will cut off after 100 entries. We'll announce closure of submissions on twitter.

Again, the picks will go live on October 25th. You'll have to check the blogs to see if you are part of Mike's Monsters, Michelle's Minions, or SC's Spooks.

When the entries do go up, please do not comment on them. No cheerleading this time, we want it all for the agents :) 

Agents will:

scream for a full request

shriek for 50 pages

Shiver for 10 pages

Good luck!  

Feel free to leave questions in the comments or on twitter (I'm SC_Author on Twitter, and I'm very happy because a few days ago my account got reactivated after a hacker spammed a few of my followers!)

(By the way, Michelle, I'm LOVING these smileys.)

ARE YOU AS EXCITED AS I AM?!?!?! This is how we writers get in the Halloween spirit, and I LOVE it!!!