The weakest link, on the weakest day.

Contest pimping and pitching.

First off, how do you like the new format? Cid thanks for your help and Alicia sorry for snipering it.

I'm going to start the doing a thing where in the middle of the week I'm going to post links to blogs I found to be useful, because as Alicia pointed out, Friday everyone's doing it, (because Friday is the most logical day.)


Contest Pimping

http://leaguewriters.blogspot.com/2010/05/introducing-league-of-extraordinary.html

League of extraordinary writers is a blog for people who love the most scary screwed up future the writers can think of. It's called a dystopia. Lots of pretty amazing YA books (young adults for those who are not in the know) feature a dystopian society, the most famous being The Giver.

The blog just started and they're having a contest, FREE STUFF. Go check it out.


Pitching
In exactly 10 days I will be going to a writers conference. My last writers conference was possible the worst day of my life, more about this to come at a later date.

Insanely I signed up for a three minute pitch session. *shakes my head in shame because clearly I didn't learn from last time*

So I am going to include some links on how to pitch a book to an agent, because I need a refresher.

As far as I can tell, pitching a book is like a verbal query letter, but you can see the agent's face as their eyes glaze over in boredom or shine with excitement.

Rachelle Gardner talk here about why it's so important. Basically it comes doing to being able to read body language.
After 9 years of being a teacher, you would think I'd be an expert at it... NOPE, if I have an idea I'm going to steamroll through you until I've said it, no matter how uncomfortable you are during the process.

She then goes on to say what to do during a pitch, like STEP by STEP DIRECTIONS. Pretty much the most useful and awesome thing ever. Her final advice was that agents are people too. Yes they are people but they are people with POWER, they can validate five years worth of work or they can make you cry. <-- that's my addition not hers. I should say EVERY agent I've ever encountered has been very kind and extremely helpful. Still they're kinda scary.

Over at QueryTracker.net Elana Johnson talked to Laura Rennert who gave 5 steps to a great pitch. Serious five steps and a five minute timer will give a perfect pitch. Guess what I'll be doing over the long weekend?

Just for some good measure some conference to do and NEVER EVER do's.

Agent and blogger superstar Nathan Bradford talks about the one sentence pitch and the one paragraph, and two paragraph pitch.
He's so dreamy.

Mary Kole talks about Pitchcraft and she did it MONTHS ago because she's a trendsetter. She will also be at the conference I'm attending and I pray to God I don't puke on her shoes. Maybe I should bring an extra pair of shoes for her, just in case.

Kathleen Teman talks about the one sentence pitch here and since she's running the NJ SCBWI conference I'm going to, it's some solid advice.

Ok there's you go TONS of links.

Any thoughts on what to do next week?