Bookends Contest #4 - Contemporary Romance

Bookends has announced the winner of the Erotic category, and now they're moving on to Contemporary. Deadline is tomorrow, so hurry if you want to enter. Here are the rules: 1. We’ll only accept entries that are posted in the comments section of this blog article. No e-mailed entries will be considered. 2. Include your title and the first 100 words of your book. Now, we’re not saying to leave us hanging mid-sentence here. Stop wherever the previous sentence ends, but do not exceed 100 words. 3. The same work cannot be entered in more than one genre. If you think your book straddles more than one genre, you’ll have to pick one. We will, however, accept multiple works from the same author in the same or different categories. 4. Once the material is entered, it’s your final entry. We won’t allow revised versions of the same work. 5. We’re accepting excerpts of both finished and unfinished works. 6. The deadline is tomorrow, March 4th, at 9:00 a.m. EST. Winner gets a critique of the query letter, synopsis, and first chapter of the winning entry! Good Luck! Bookends Blog

Jessica Faust Doing Critiques At Romantic Times Online

I happened across this while looking around the Romantic Times online website and thought I'd share. Apparently, if you email the first three pages of your ms, Jessica Faust of Bookends will critique them. It says that members of the Western Pennsylvania Romance Writers RWA Chapter get first dibs, but it doesn't say if/when non-members can submit. So, being that they posted the email address, and said to send it in, that's what I did. :) Here's the link to the site: http://www.romantictimes.com/authors_tip.php?tip=994 Good luck!

THE ALL-IMPORTANT FIRST THREE PAGES

With a new year comes a new Pros on Prose column, which will offer criticism of aspiring writers' first three pages, as evaluated by industry professionals. We asked Jessica Faust, an agent with Bookends LLC, to read the opening manuscript and evaluate it with an eye toward submission. Because the 25th anniversary Romantic Times Booklovers Convention will be held in Pittsburgh in 2008, works by members of the Western Pennsylvania Romance Writers RWA chapter will be the first to be critiqued anonymously. If you'd like the first three pages of your work critiqued, e-mail faygie@romantictimes.com. Please include your name and the category of your story.

Bookends Contest #3 - Erotic Romance

Bookends has moved on to the next contest! Phew, they're moving fast! Here are the rules (I snipped them from the blog): TODAY IS THE EROTIC ROMANCE CONTEST! We're accepting all types of erotic romance, including contemporary, historical, and paranormal. ***PLEASE NOTE THAT SOME OF THESE ENTRIES MAY DESCRIBE GRAPHIC SEX SCENES. WE KNOW THIS KIND OF MATERIAL ISN’T FOR EVERYBODY. IF YOU FIND THIS TYPE OF WRITING PERSONALLY OFFENSIVE, THEN PLEASE REFRAIN FROM READING THE COMMENTS SECTION.*** Here are the rules: 1. We’ll only accept entries that are posted in the comments section of this blog article. No e-mailed entries will be considered. 2. Include your title and the first 100 words of your book. Now, we’re not saying to leave us hanging mid-sentence here. Stop wherever the previous sentence ends, but do not exceed 100 words. 3. The same work cannot be entered in more than one genre. If you think your book straddles more than one genre, you’ll have to pick one. We will, however, accept multiple works from the same author in the same or different categories. 4. Once the material is entered, it’s your final entry. We won’t allow revised versions of the same work. 5. We’re accepting excerpts of both finished and unfinished works. 6. The deadline is tomorrow, February 26th, at 9:00 a.m. EST. And in case you’ve forgotten, the prize is a critique of the query letter, synopsis, and first chapter of the winning entry! The winner will e-mail us the additional material and we’ll provide our notes privately, not on the blog. We will, however, discuss what we liked about each winning 100-word entry on the blog, and will pull out a few honorable mentions to highlight other excerpts that came close and why. We’ll post the winners in a few days and then move on to the next genre. But this time we’ll make it a surprise, just to keep you on your toes! Good Luck!

Bookends Contest #2

Bookends has moved on to the PARANORMAL ROMANCE/ROMANCE WITH FANTASY ELEMENTS/FANTASY WITH ROMANTIC ELEMENTS CONTEST! Here are the rules:

• 1. We’ll only accept entries that are posted in the comments section of this blog article. No e-mailed entries will be considered.
• 2. Include your title and the first 100 words of your book. Now, we’re not saying to leave us hanging mid-sentence here. Stop wherever the previous sentence ends, but do not exceed 100 words.
• 3. The same work cannot be entered in more than one genre. If you think your book straddles more than one genre, you’ll have to pick one. We will, however, accept multiple works from the same author in the same or different categories.
• 4. Once the material is entered, it’s your final entry. We won’t allow revised versions of the same work.
• 5. We’re accepting excerpts of both finished and unfinished works.6. The deadline is tomorrow, February 20th, at 9:00 a.m. EST.
• And in case you’ve forgotten, the prize is a critique of the query letter, synopsis, and first chapter of the winning entry!
• The winner will e-mail us the additional material and we’ll provide our notes privately, not on the blog. We will, however, discuss what we liked about each winning 100-word entry on the blog, and will pull out a few honorable mentions to highlight other excerpts that came close and why.We’ll post the winners in a few days and then move on to the next genre: Erotic Romance!

They're moving fast. Last week they took entries for the Mystery contest, and they've already posted the Honorable Mentions. Hurry and get your entry in! Bookends Blog

Lots of Upcoming Contests at Bookends

Starting TODAY, Bookends will be judging a whole series of contests on their blog. Here's a bit of information about the contest I snipped from their blog post: We’re launching a new contest today, and this one is going to be something a little different. We’ll actually be judging a whole series of contests. We decided to try several genre-specific competitions of the first 100 words of the work. We’ll be limiting the types of books to the areas that we represent. In the next few months we’ll be holding contests in the following genres:

• Mystery (traditional and cozy)
• Paranormal Romance/Romance With Fantasy Elements
• Erotic Romance
• Women’s Fiction
• Romantic Suspense
• Contemporary Romance
• Thriller/Suspense
• Historical Romance

The rules are as follows:

• 1. We’ll only accept entries that are posted in the comments section of this blog article. No e-mailed entries will be considered.
• 2. Include your title and the first 100 words of your book. Now, we’re not saying to leave us hanging mid-sentence here. Stop wherever the previous sentence ends, but do not exceed 100 words.
• 3. The same work cannot be entered in more than one genre. If you think your book straddles more than one genre, you’ll have to pick one. We will, however, accept multiple works from the same author in different categories.
• 4. Once the material is entered, it’s your final entry. We won’t allow revised versions of the same work.
• 5. The deadline is tomorrow, February 15th, at 9:00 a.m. EST.

I don't know about you, but I'm getting my query letter, synopsis and first 100 words in order!

On another note, the Bookends Pitch Critique has ended. On Tuesdays Bookends post, Jessica finally said she'd had enough. And who can blame her? I know she had to have critiqued at least 200 or more pitches. However, I'm sorry to say, she didn't get to mine. When she decided to stop, my entry was 15 away from her last critique. Oh well, maybe I'll have better luck with the 100 word contest. I'm waiting for the Historical Romance category. I'm just glad they didn't start the contest off with my category, because this contest came as a huge surprise. Not even a hint that they would be doing this. :)

So, I'm off to get my submission ready. You never know, they just might decide to take submissions for the Historical Romance Category tomorrow. If so, I want to be ready. :)

Wish me luck!

Bookends, LLC Blog

Free Pitch Critique Offer Still Open at Bookends

I just came from the Bookends blog, and it appears that Jessica Fausts' offer for a free pitch critique is still open. A few posts ago it sounded as though she'd just about had it and was giving up on the remaining submissions, but now it looks like she's decided to keep at it. I submitted my pitch a couple of weeks ago, so I'm waaayy down at the bottom of the list. I hope she gets to it before she really gets burned out and decides to stop doing the critiques. :) If you want to submit your pitch you'd better get over there before she changes her mind! And remember, you have to submit your pitch in the comments section of the original post. Good luck! Bookends Blog Bookends Website Original Bookends Post - Perfecting Your Pitch