I will no longer be updating this guide. I'm leaving it up in case it will continue to be helpful to anyone in the future.
People have asked me writing tips, Wattpad tips, and whatever. This is some of that advice I give them. Keep in mind most of t...
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Today, boys and girls, let's discuss pitch contests on Twitter. There are a lot of them out there and I personally don't know all of them. There's PitchWars, PitMad, DivPit, SFFPit, TeenPit, RevPit, and so many pitch contests it'll make your head spin. Some are only open to people who have Twitter, others are hosted through an external site so you can enter without Twitter. All of them can open doors that might otherwise be closed.
What is a twitter pitch contest exactly? Well, it's essentially like an open casting call for pitches. In the simplest terms, you put out this pitch on Twitter, tag it with the appropriate tags, and then agents/publishers will favorite that tweet if/when they like it. That favorite is an invitation for you to then query them. Now getting a favorite doesn't mean you get signed, you still have to query the way you would any other time. It just means you have a foot in the door to send that query even if in general the agent is closed to queries.
Each of these pitch contests has their own set of rules and their own times/dates in which they take place. Follow these rules and times. I can't stress that enough. If they say you only get 2 pitches in a 2 hour window, then you only get 2 pitches in a 2 hour window, though most usually give you 3 pitches in an 8 hour window. If they say don't contact agents directly without getting a favorite from them. Then don't contact agents directly without getting a favorite from them. It's really that simple.
The reason for that is that, in many ways, these events are cesspools. Any author with a completed manuscript can enter, and often does even if their MS actually needs a ton more work. There are also robots that pick up on trending tags and start to spam those tags. This means there are a lot of tweets that go on during that stretch. These agents and publishers are taking time out of their day, away from other traditional queried methods, to participate in these. So be respectful.
*ahem* Now that I have that little rant out of the way, lets move on. Your pitch, at least as far as twitter goes, must be contained with a single tweet that also includes the required hashtags. You need both the contests pitch tag, the genre, and the age group. For example. Lets say I was entering Draygon Frost into pitmad. I'd need my pitch, #pitmad, #A, #F. And if you're writing a story based on either your struggle with mental health, life as a POC, or anything like that, you could also use #ownvoices.
The age tags are:
#YA = Young Adult
#MG= Middle Grade
#A= Adult
#NA= New Adult
The genres get a little tougher for me since I don't know all of them, that's where reading the rules of the contest will help as they'll have a list of acceptable genre tags. The only one I know for sure is #F for fantasy.
You have to have at minimum the age, genre, and contest tags. Because the agent/publisher won't see you if you don't have the contest tag, and from there they'll sort the tag to what they personally represent. They're also not going to want to sort through a bunch of adult and middle grade stories when they only represent young adult. So please, make sure you leave room for all of your tags. Figure out which tags you need for which contest, and design your pitch around that.
