[…] Interviews: twitter, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 […]

Thank you for writing this I loved reading it. I am not a writer never imagined myself to be a writer but last week this great well I think it’s great idea pooped into my head and before i knew it a romance book came alive. I have always loved reading good romances beach novels etc. They tell a story about life human interactions struggles and love. Can you guide me to someone who would preview my story and give me feed back ? I am not sure what my goal is. Get it published ? Just for fun? I don’t know but Something about my story excites me thank you for getting back to me if you get a chance

[…] Interviews: twitter, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 […]

Those are awesome. This was very helpful for me. I am in the editing process right now and those were terrific. I wrote them down and have them ready to go. Thanks for your help.

Gosh, I missed this. Wasn’t it early summer just now…?
Time flew by so fast, I’m still dizzy. I will read through the posts during the next week. See you all again next year.

Thanks to the organizers for all your hard work and to all the publishing pros that presented or gave feedback.

Thank you to all of the organizers! This was my first WriteOnCon and I had a blast, learned SO much, and was continually impressed with other participants, the ninja agents who shared their knowledge with us and with the interviews and pitch sessions that ran so smoothly. I plan to return next year. Thank you for all that you offered us!

What love, dedication and brilliant brains you all have to organize this awesome conference and website! My fav was watching the pitch reactions of The Spencer Hill Press Gals. You get a sense of who they are and what they love and what they’re looking for. And it was fun to watch! I hope you’ll have more video streaming next year.
Being a newbie, posting my work in the forum was a feat in itself, technically speaking, and I did it, ye! time to tackle that twitter account.
Thanks so much for an amazing 2014 conference-I look forward to next year’s!
C.E. Aegean

Really nice. Reminds me of the book “Art and Fear” by David Bayles and Ted Orland. Great book. I also like the line in a Wendall Berry poem, “It’s the impeded stream that sings.”

Thanks for putting this together, WriteOnCon Crew!

Woo, what a whirlwind, right? From crazy twitter pitches (twitches?) to ninja stalking and requests to hopefully making new friends in the forums, we hope you had as great a time as us!  If you need a recap of the things that happened on day #2, here you go:

Twitter Pitch Event with editor Annie Berger from Harper Collins (see if yours was selected; go to #writeoncon to read the feedback)

Twitter Pitch Event with literary agent Carlie Webber (see if yours was selected; go to #writeoncon to read the feedback)

Twitter Pitch Event with literary agent Victoria Marini (see if yours was selected; go to #writeoncon to read the feedback)

Live chat with editor Andrew Harwell and literary agent Jenny Bent

And… now the conference is over already! What a bummer, right? Well, don’t despair… at least our forums will stay up for a couple of weeks, so you can still read the work of other’s, critique and maybe even some ninjas might still show their faces – uh masks? – this week. Who really knows? They’re THAT sneaky.

First and foremost we’d like to thank all the literary agents and editors that provided their free time to WriteOnCon this year! You all have busy schedules and it means a lot to us that some of you keep coming back for more.  We can’t say thank you enough for that!

Secondly, our attendees… thank you for sticking with us through server outages and technical difficulties. Thanks for contributing to the forums and generally being awesome!

A feedback form, where you can tell us what you thought of this year’s condensed version of WriteOnCon, can be found here!

We’ve already received a couple of donations, so THANK YOU so much to those people who’ve contributed. If you haven’t donated yet, please consider it, because your donations are what keeps WriteOnCon going and has us return every year! Even a small donation goes a long way!

Thank you!

WriteOncon…. out.

Wasn’t yesterday awesome?! I hope you’ve been spending time in our forums. I can’t stress it enough — that’s where most of the WriteOnCon magic happens. Even if you don’t get your work commented on by an agent, you can learn a lot from the comments they leave for others.

We also hope you got a lot of information yesterday on what makes a good pitch. We have several more pitch events today, so we’re hoping to get through more of the HUNDREDS of pitches that have been submitted via our Google form.

You can still submit your pitch if you haven’t yet. (Please don’t submit a repeat! We only need you to put in your pitch once.) The form will remain open until 3 PM EST, at which time we will close it.

We have a couple of hours until our first event, so head over to the forums and get some critiquing done!

Whew! So we made it through day one! Even through the glitches and changes and everything. That’s the great part about technology — you never really know if you can count on it!

We’re thrilled with your patience, and your kindness, as we work behind-the-scenes to put on the best events we can. We realize that we cannot meet everyone’s needs, so every “thank you!” and “you’re doing great!” mean a lot to us.

In case you missed some of the awesome today, here’s where you can go to get caught up:

Keynote by Literary Agent Peter Knapp

Twitter Pitch Event with literary agent Katie Reed (see if yours was selected; go to #writeoncon to read the feedback)

Twitter Pitch Event with literary agent Amy Stern (see if yours was selected; go to #writeoncon to read the feedback)

Live Chat with literary agent Molly Ker Hawn

Live Google Hangout with the editors at Spencer Hill Press

And we have another day of awesomeness lined up for tomorrow! We hope you’ve been hanging out in the forums, getting and giving feedback, and maybe doing a little Ninja stalking…

And if you can, we’d love for you to donate to WriteOnCon. It takes thousands of dollars each year to update the forums, purchase the plans we need for chatting, and increase our server capacity. NONE of the organizers behind the scenes get a dime — it all goes to making sure we can keep bringing you these great events.

Thanks!

Danielle, Asja, and Patricia are looking for specific manuscripts. PLEASE DO NOT PITCH DURING THIS EVENT IF YOUR NOVEL DOES NOT MEET THE FOLLOWING CRITERIA:

• -Only YA.
• -Realistic (Contempoary) ONLY.
• -Completed, revised MSs ONLY.

We will be TAKING YOUR PITCHES FROM TWITTER using the hashtag #wocshp. These are TWITTER PITCHES, meaning they must be 140 characters or less.

One of the cool things about the Google Hangout is that we can stream parameters into our feeds and thus, display them for our pros.  You’ll be ON TWITTER to pitch, once again using the hashtag #wocshp. We have it set so that all tweets with that hashtag come into our Hangout, where one of us will put the pitch on the screen for the pros to read.

You’ll then get to see their honest reactions. So be prepared! You’ll get to see their faces as they read, hear their voices as they react.

Watch on YouTube, or Google+.

There is an anecdote about the late editor Ursula Nordstrom that her posthumously published collection of letters, Dear Genius, has made popular among children’s publishing professionals. Ms. Nordstrom was the editor-in-chief and publisher of Harper & Row’s Department of Books for Boys and Girls for over thirty years, from 1940 until 1973. She worked with such authors as Margaret Wise Brown, Charlotte Zolotow, Maurice Sendak, Shel Silverstein, Crockett Johnson, and E. B. White, among many others. She was a fierce advocate for authors, a devoted writer of letters, a defender of challenging subjects and important books, and a brilliant editor. She was, quite simply, a visionary.

The anecdote goes like this: Ms. Nordstrom was at an event when someone questioned her credentials, asking what qualified her—a “nonteacher, nonparent, and noncollege graduate”—to edit and publish books for kids. Ms. Nordstrom, quick on the draw, responded, “Well, I am a former child, and I haven’t forgotten a thing.”

Doubt can come from any direction, at any time. It was true for Ursula Nordstrom, and it’s true for the rest of us, too. In creative endeavors especially it can feel like building paper boats and setting them adrift in vast seas of uncertainty. Is the plotting good enough? Is the voice strong enough? Do I actually have something to say? When striving to make something that is both entirely new and inevitably personal, it’s easy to question the validity of your claims and the credentials that allow you to make them. It is easy to both hear and be the nagging voice asking: what are your qualifications, anyways?

Have faith. You have surely, at one point or another, hesitated to put a period on a sentence, to hit save on a new story idea, to email off a first draft or to tell someone that yes, you are a writer. Doubt is good: it is your ally and your instrument. Anne Lamott, whose collection on writing Bird By Bird is immensely popular, wrote about uncertainty when addressing faith in Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith: “I have a lot of faith. But I am also afraid a lot, and have no real certainty about anything. I remembered something Father Tom had told me—that the opposite of faith is not doubt, but certainty. Certainty is missing the point entirely. Faith includes noticing the mess, the emptiness and discomfort, and letting it be there until some light returns.” It is not surprising, then, that Ms. Lamott has been so successful at writing about both faith and the creative process. In describing faith’s demand for uncertainty, she could just as easily have been describing the perquisites to write, for it too demands finding darkness and slowly shedding a light on it, sentence-by-sentence—word-by-word.

So what are the credentials that entitle you to attend a conference for writers? What qualifies you to be here is that you are here. Because you don’t just hear the nagging questions—you strive to answer them.

This is the spirit of WriteOnCon.

And when all else fails—when you find yourself facing down the darkest corner of the darkest room—just remember this: you are, in fact, a former child, too.

Okay, so this is probably the most important post you’ll read from us this year. It’s going to give you ALL the instructions for how each of our 8 live events will go. PLEASE READ every word of it. Then read it again. Then again. Then ask any questions you have. Any pitches that don’t follow the rules will be disqualified.

Live Twitter Pitch Events (schedule below):

1. These will happen on Twitter, using the hashtag #writeoncon. We encourage you to follow along using TweetChat or something similar where you can watch that specific hashtag.

2. You submit your pitches for our Live Twitter Pitch Events through a Google form, as per the instructions HERE (given on August 21. Pitches will be taken through the form until 3 PM EST on Wednesday). NOT on Twitter. NOT during the event. ANY pitches tweeted to the #writeoncon hashtag during the event will be disqualified!

3. We have a moderator for each of the Live Twitter Pitch Events. They will be logged into the @WriteOnCon account, and our pros have been instructed to ONLY respond to those pitches that come from the @WriteOnCon account.

4. We love the setup of this, because for the past 5 days, you’ve been able to submit your pitch for one of these events, whether or not you’ll be able to attend at their scheduled time. If your pitch is selected and you’re not online, never fear! We will make a list of those pitches that got through for each Pitch Event and put it in our forum. Then you can check the #writeoncon hashtag stream for the feedback on yours — anytime!

Live Twitter Pitch Events:

Tuesday, August 26

Noon EST: with literary agent Katie Reed (taking MG/YA/NA and women’s fiction pitches)

2 PM EST: with literary agent Amy Stern (taking PB illustrators, MG, YA, and SFF pitches)

Wednesday, August 27

10 AM EST: with literary agent Annie Berger (taking realistic fiction and fantasy pitches)

1 PM EST: with literary agent Carlie Webber (taking all genres of MG and YA except for epic/high fantasy)

3 PM EST: with literary agent Victoria Marini (genres TBA)

So that’s 5 hours of pitch feedback! Even if yours doesn’t get selected, think of how much you can learn!!

Google Hangout Pitch Events:

We have one Google Hangout Pitch Event happening this year, with three editors from Spencer Hill Press. This event will take place on Tuesday night at 9 PM EST. We will broadcast this live Hangout via our website and YouTube.

1. For this event ONLY, you will submit your pitches live via twitter with the special hashtag #wocshp (WriteOnCon Spencer Hill Press). ONLY pitches with this hashtag will make it into our queue of pitches for the event. It will run similarly to the one SHP did last year. Check that out here.

2. ONLY YA realistic contemporary pitches. NO exceptions. (Well, you can tweet it, but we won’t put it up in the Hangout.)

3. Even if you can’t attend, if you can tweet, you can participate. The video will be available for you and your posterity. So hopefully you can get to a phone or tablet or computer to tweet your pitch with the appropriate hashtag.

Live Chats:

We have two live text chats this year, with industry professionals. These will be embedded in our website on THIS PAGE, and the transcript will be posted later and be available online for as long as this site is up.

Tuesday, August 26

4 PM EST: with literary agent Molly Ker Hawn on the submission process

Wednesday, August 27

9 PM EST: with literary agent Jenny Bent and editor Andrew Harwell on the general publishing industry

1. We will take questions during these events, using Twitter. You will tweet your question using the hashtag #writeoncon, and we will select the ones we think will have the widest audience appeal. (That’s a hint not to ask too personal and/or specific questions!)

2. This is a new chatting program, where our users can contribute to the chat. We have never done this before–we have always moderated the comments. But this year, we’d love to have you chat with each other for the few minutes before the chat starts.

BUT — once the chat starts, we’re going to ask you to keep your comments to yourself. The questions you have should go through the Twitter #writeoncon hashtag stream.

IF — we feel like you’re inserting too many comments during the chat, we do have the power to delete them and/or ban you from commenting in the chat. Please don’t make us do that!

3. Transcript available afterward if you can’t attend the event live.

And that’s it! Those are our 8 events, and we’re hoping to address hundreds of pitches, learn a lot about the publishing industry, and give you the best WriteOnCon yet!

We’re so glad you’re here with us for our fifth year! It has been fun to be behind-the-scenes every year, watching as WriteOnCon grows and changes with the needs/wants of the industry, as well as our attendees.

If you’ve checked our Program page, you’ve noticed how we’ve scaled WriteOnCon down to include what everyone wants: Live Events. We have 8 of them this year, and in 30 minutes, you’ll see a post here on the site that gives you detailed instructions for how to participate in these Live Events. So watch for that, and be sure to read it!

Other than that, welcome to WriteOnCon! We hope you’ve registered in the forum, as we have dozens of Ninja Agents trolling through the critique boards, looking for potential clients and giving feedback. You can also find critique partners and offer feedback on other attendees’ work. Don’t overlook the magic that happens in the WOC forums!

Ready, set — GO!

In case you haven’t been obsessively refreshing the “program” page, here it is!

GO HERE TO SEE THE SCHEDULE OF LIVE EVENTS for WriteOnCon 2014!

Only a few days left, WriteOnCon-ers! We hope you have your pitches prepped and your mouse ready to repeatedly refresh (if you’re anything like us, that is). We’re so excited to bring a great con this year, full of opportunities to get feedback from an awesome group of agents and editors.

Last year, we heard some frustration about how our pitch events were structured. We get it—repeatedly tweeting pitches is no fun, especially if you don’t get selected. So we’re doing things a little differently. First of all, our focus this year has been to create as many pitch opportunities as possible. Most of our events are pitch focused this year. If you don’t have something pitch-ready just yet, there’s still plenty to learn, though! Observing critiques and giving a little feedback can really make a difference when you’re ready to tackle it yourself.

We’re also adjusting our submission procedures. If you’d like to submit a pitch for our live events, here’s what you do:

• Click here to go to the submission form, which is open NOW!
• Submit your pitch using the instructions on the form. We are only accepting short, tweetable pitches via this form (140 characters or less including the #writeoncon hashtag). If you’re looking for feedback on a longer pitch or query letter, please post that in the forums.
• THAT’S IT.

By following those instructions, your pitch will be submitted for all of the events. There’s no need to submit multiple times—please don’t! Select your best pitch and enter it into the form one time. We’re trying to get feedback for as many people as possible and will delete multiple pitches from the same person.

We’ll be selecting pitches at random during the event itself, although submitting early is a good idea. The earlier you get in, the more chances you’ll have of being selected. The reality is that in past years, we’ve received enough pitches to do 10 conventions. We’ll try to select as many of them as possible in the time that we have, but we simply don’t have time for all of them. You can help us to maximize the number of pitches we get through by following the rules!

During twitter events, we’ll tweet selected pitches from our @writeoncon account, using the hashtag #writeoncon. The agent will tweet their reactions from their account. We’ll make sure to post those twitter handles in advance so you know where to look, but in a pinch, always search the #writeoncon hashtag.

For our Google hangout, we will post links to the hangout on this blog, on the @writeoncon twitter, and on our facebook page. Those don’t go live until shortly before the event, so don’t worry if you don’t see them far in advance.

And you’ll find our live chats here, embedded right into a post on this blog. Again, that post will open shortly before the event begins to give you time to log in.

We’re still putting together a few last minute events, but the schedule will be posted as soon as we have it. Have any other questions? You can post them here in the comments, and there’s a question section in the forum as well. Let us know, and we’ll give you a hand.

Write on!

We’re so excited to be bringing you our NINJA AGENT program again this year!

This program will take place in the forums–so you must be registered and using the forums to participate. If you haven’t already done that, go HERE.

Here’s what you’ll do:
1. Post your absolute best, polished query letter or writing sample in the appropriate critique threads in the forums. (Please look carefully and ask questions if you’re unsure about where to post, and make sure you follow all our forum guidelines)
2. Don your thick dragon skin, cross your fingers, and keep checking your forum posts, because our Ninja Agents will be sneaking around, leaving feedback on whatever strikes their fancy–which could very well be YOUR QUERY.
3. Pray you’ve perfected your work enough to generate a request. Some agents may be requesting from the posts they read.
4. Remember your manners. Please don’t engage in hurtful behavior toward an industry professional because of feedback they might leave on your query. Remember, publishing is SO SUBJECTIVE.

That’s it. That’s all there is to it. All you have to do is use our forums the same way you should be using them anyway (because they’re AWESOME) and you could have a super-cool Ninja-Agent critique your work. And even if they don’t comment on your work (they promise they will try to comment/critique on as many as they can) you can learn SO much from the comments they leave for others. Because really, the best part about the forum is that you can go read the feedback whenever your schedule allows.

What the Ninjas will do:
1. Each Ninja Agent will be in the forum during the conference. You won’t know who, and you won’t know when…that’s the beauty of a ninja. They strike when you’re least expecting it.
2. Ninja Agents have been encouraged to leave feedback—as detailed or as vague as they want—on as many queries as they can. They can also request from the queries they read.

We are announcing who the Ninja Agents are, but not when they’ll be Ninja-ing or who’s who. So Ninja Agent Blue could be any of the following….

Our Ninjafied Nunchuckatorians are:

• Pete Knapp, Park Literary
• Victoria Marini, Gelfman Schneider Literary
• Kathleen Zakhar,  Harold Ober Associates, Inc.
• Katie Grimm, Don Congdon Associates, Inc.
• Janine Hauber, Sheldon Fogelman Agency
• Danielle Smith, Red Fox Literary
• Jaida Temperly, New Leaf Literary
• Danielle Barthel, New Leaf Literary
• Jess Ballow, New Leaf Literary
• Amy Sterm, Sheldon Fogelman Agency
• Carlie Webber, CK Webber Associates
• Renee Nyen, KT Literary
• Laurie McLean, Foreword Literary
• Laura Cummings, Foreword Literary
• Brian Farrey-Latz, Flux
• Alycia Tornetta, Entangled Publishing
• Nicole Steinhaus, Entangled Publishing
• Katie Reed, Andrea Hurst & Associates Literary Management
• Jackie Lindert, New Leaf Literary
• Alex Slater, Trident Media Literary
• Annie Berger, Harper Collins
• Rena Rossner, Deborah Harris Agency
• Patricia Riley, Spencer Hill Press

The Ninja-Agent Program is open for business starting on Tuesday, August 26, though some of our ninjas may make an appearance before that!

We hope this program will benefit everyone, from those who post their query to those reading the comments/opinions from some of the top literary agents in the publishing world.

Questions? Ask them here!

Keep calm and carry on, folks. We know the announcement is a little late this year, but WriteOnCon 2014 is happening, and it’s going to be awesome! Mark your calendars for August 26-27, and get those pitches ready, because we’re in the process of lining up a stellar list of Ninja Agents and Editors who are looking for the next big thing.

You’ll notice a few changes this time around. This year, we decided to put more focus on the things you tell us you love the most. You come to us for unprecedented access to agents and editors. We’re bringing the Ninja Agents and Editors to our forums in force. And we’ll also be holding a couple of live events to give you a chance to ask all your burning questions. We’re eliminating some of the things like blog posts and vlogs that didn’t generate as much interest—at least for this year. We’d love to hear what you think about this pared down WriteOnCon when it’s all said and done.

Over the next month, we’ll be cleaning up the site and the forums and finalizing the schedule. Keep an eye on this space or follow us on twitter (@writeoncon) or facebook (writeoncon) to stay up to date on the latest and greatest. Until then, get to work on those pitches, because the countdown has begun!

The Reading Room has officially announced the winners of the 2013 Reading Room/WriteOnCon Aspiring Authors’ Competition! Thank you to everyone who entered and voted–the talent this year was astounding.

The honor of Third Place and a cash prize of $250 goes to Amy Trueblood and her piece Fighting Chance.

The honor of Second Place and a cash prize of $500 goes to Ashley Laster and her piece Shades and Shadows.

And the honor of First Place and a cash prize of $1000 goes to Michelle Weidenbenner and her piece Love is Just a Word.

Submissions for the Aspiring Authors competition were judged by a panel of three literary agents. Catherine Drayton of Inkwell Management, Charlie Olsen, of Inkwell Management and Jennifer Rofe, of Andrea Brown Literary.

All of the winning entries will appear in a special e-book, which will be available for download soon! Michelle will also have the opportunity to discuss her manuscript with literary agent Catherine Drayton!

In addition, EVERY voter will be entered into a drawing to win a $100 gift certificate, just for voting. So, technically, we’re all winners!

Congratulations again, winners. You did it! Until next year…

Voting has begun!!!!

Wait no longer, the votes are in and the top five submissions for The WriteOnCon/Reading Room Aspiring Authors’ Competition have been selected. Click here to vote for your favorite (every voter will be entered to win an $100 gift certificate!) Congratulations to all of the finalists!