Speaking of updates, I remembered to check on my WEbook Page to Fame submissions today. I tell ya, I’ve gotten a lot of entertainment out of those $5 submissions.

Anyway, here’s a screen shot of how I’m doing at the moment:

I’m doing much better since they’ve removed all the ‘bad’ votes. It turns out some folks were going on there and lowballing submissions that weren’t theirs. I had kind of wondered why I had the almost exact same crappy marks for two very different projects–one that had been very much edited and one that hadn’t (at all, really). Now, there is a variety in marks which is relieving and expected. The edited project is doing 4% better (it’s the 2nd one in the above image). Interesting, isn’t it?

I may have already mentioned this, but I love the fact that this contest (which allows you to submit the first page–about 250 words if I recall correctly) has opened my eyes to things I need to improve. Looking at my first page and looking at the marks that were coming in, I quickly realized my story was not showing how it was different right up front. It was, well, kind of average in its topic, if you know what I mean? Thanks to this contest, combined with a few bits of agent feedback, I have since improved my opening with a few tweaks to let the reader see that this might not be your typical girl-getting-married-and-having-second-thoughts kind of story.

I sure do love it when feedback helps me see what I need to do to push my writing to the next level.

How about you? Have you gotten a tidbit somewhere lately that’s opened your eyes to what you need to do to make your work better or make it stand out?

P.S. I’ve blacked out the contest submission titles as I don’t want folks I know inflating my marks out of the kindness of their dear little hearts. Just in case they might be tempted….

Well, lucky for us, it is the Internet Age, baby. Yeah!

Here are three things that have come under my nose lately that might interest you:

The Knight Agency is having a ‘Book in a Nutshell’ contest. What you do is find out what they represent and then submit your pitch to them if you have a project that fits their interests. What’s a pitch? Basically, sell your story using a maximum of 150 words  limit  and 3 sentences to make these primo agents sit up and select your story from the undoubtedly thigh high pile of submissions they will be receiving. They are only choosing 20 pitches for which they will be provide feedback. Agent feedback on your writing! That’s golden! You have until April 20th.

Along the same lines (okay not really) is agent Nathan Bransford’s ‘Be An Agent for a Day’ contest. Basically, a bunch of people–probably at least a thousand knowing the pull Nathan’s blog generally has from his readers–send Nathan their queries. He then selects 50 queries which he will post on his blog (April 13th). Now here’s where we come in, over the period of a week, we comment on the posted queries. We can also ‘make requests’ (up to 5) for the queries we like. So what’s the catch? He’s going to slip in queries from published books. Ha! If you pick the ‘real’ winners (the queries that lead to a story being published) you win! That easy. I think it’ll be a great way for those who complain about agents to get a real taste of what it is like in their shoes.

And last, but equally exciting is another ‘Secret Agent Contest: Are You Hooked’ sponsored by Authoress aka Miss Snark’s First Victim. I have looked in on some of the contests she’s had in the past and they’ve been great. This time she is looking for the first 250 words of a completed novel falling under the genre of women’s fiction, commercial or literary middle grade/young adult. She opens the submissions on Monday the 13th and only takes the first 50. The feedback is great–from readers as well as a ‘secret’ agent. Again, another fantastic chance to improve your writing.

So go forth and enter my friends!

Enjoy and good luck.