I entered the March Madness Agent Pitch Match about a week ago. To get in, there were three times during the day in which you had half an hour to email your 35-word pitch and first 150 words of your manuscript. Only the first 50 pitches at each time slot would make it into the contest. When the first time slot came around, I got online and waited for the clock to tick on the hour. When it did, I hesitated sending my email, wondering if there was going to be some indication of when to send. Twenty seconds after the hour, I went ahead and sent my pitch - and didn't make the cut. Fifty pitches were submitted in less than twenty seconds. Wow! So, when the next time slot came around, I sent my email the very millisecond the clock ticked on the hour - and got in! By the end of the day, the contest had 198 entries. (If you did the math, you realized 198 is more than 50x3. Anyone who had participated in a pitch workshop the month before got a special entry.) From there, the sponsors, Brenda Drake, Cassandra Marshall, and Shelley Watters chose sixty pitches for the "game" round of the contest. And my pitch made it! Yay! There are ten agents who will basically play poker for the pitches they want. They can play a hand to try for a query, partial or full manuscript. They can also use certain hands to trump another's play. All of this takes place between March 12 -14. You can follow the action on twitter with the hash-tag #PitchMadness. Should be fun!
Check out Brenda's blog about the rules here!
And Cassandra's blog with my entry is here! Wish me luck!
