27th Free “Dear Lucky Agent” Contest: Women’s Fiction

Jacquelyn Bischak - Woman Reading By The Window

Chuck Sambuccino, the editor of the Guide to Literary Agents, is running another "Dear Lucky Agent" contest. These contests allow writers to submit one page of their manuscript to be judged by an agent. The genre for this contest is women's fiction. There is no entry fee.

Winners of the contest have a more than good chance of getting representation. It's good to enter contests, not just because you may win one, but because they force you to write short summaries and synopses, and to polish your first few pages until they shine. These are usually the only pages an agent will see before making a decision. (Sometimes they only read a paragraph.)

The contest deadline is Nov. 25, 2016. CLICK HERE for more details.

For hundreds of free contests organized by month see: FREE CONTESTS.

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From the GLA blog: 

Welcome to the 27th (free!) “Dear Lucky Agent” Contest on the GLA blog. This is a FREE recurring online contest with agent judges and super-cool prizes. Here’s the deal: With every contest, the details are essentially the same, but the niche itself changes—meaning each contest is focused around a specific category or two. If you’re writing a women’s fiction novel, then this 27th contest is for you! The contest is live through end of day, Thursday, Nov. 25, 2016. The contest is judged by agent Irene Goodman of the Irene Goodman Literary Agency.

WHY YOU SHOULD GET EXCITED

After a previous “Dear Lucky Agent” contest, the agent judge, Tamar Rydzinski (The Laura Dail Literary Agency), signed one of the three contest winners. After Tamar signed the writer, she went on to sell two of that writer’s books! How cool! These contests can’t be missed if you have an eligible submission.

HOW TO SUBMIT

E-mail entries to dearluckyagent27@gmail.com. Please paste all text. The only time to include attachments are when you have to attach images to show your social-media sharing (more info that below).

MEET YOUR (AWESOME) AGENT JUDGE!

Irene Goodman has been a leading member of the publishing community for over 30 years. She has sold more than 1,500 books and counting. Her clients are regulars on the New York Times, USA Today, Publishers Weekly, and Bookscan bestseller lists. She began her career as the assistant to the agent who represented Stephen King, and established her own agency shortly after that. Her fiction list includes upmarket women’s fiction, middle grade, young adult, thrillers, historical fiction, and mysteries. Her nonfiction list includes pop culture, Jewish interest, science, self-help, Francophilia, and lifestyle.

Irene has written columns and articles for a number of writers’ publications, and is also a frequent speaker at writers conferences, including keynoting at the Historical Novelists Society and Novelists Ink., and workshops at the San Francisco Writers Conference, the Surrey International Writers Conference, the Pacific Northwest Writers Conference, SEAK, the South Carolina Writers Workshop, Malice Domestic, and many regional events. Originally from the Midwest and still trying to lose the accent, Irene has a B.A. and a master’s degree from the University of Michigan. She and her husband divide their time between New York and the Berkshires, and have two grown children.

WHAT TO SUBMIT (AND OUR SOCIAL MEDIA REQUIREMENTS)

The first 150-300 words (i.e., your first double-spaced page) of your unpublished, completed women’s fiction novel. You must include a contact e-mail address with your entry and use your real name. Also note your city of residence (i.e. — the city you live in, not your full address). Submit the title of the work and a logline (one-sentence description of the work) with each entry. Self-published novels are not eligible.

Please note: To be eligible to submit, you must mention this contest twice through any any social-media. Please provide a social-media link or Twitter handle or screenshot or blog post URL, etc., with your official e-mailed entry so the judge and I can verify eligibility. Some previous entrants could not be considered because they skipped this step! In short, simply spread the word twice through any means and give us a way to verify you did; a TinyURL for this link/contest for you to easily use is http://tinyurl.com/jje3qaw

An easy way to notify me of your sharing is to include my Twitter handle @chucksambuchino at the end of your mention(s) if using Twitter. If we’re friends on FB, tag me in the mention. If you are going to just use Twitter as your 2 entries, please wait one day between mentions to spread out the notices, instead of simply tweeting twice back to back. Thanks. (Please note that simply tweeting me does not count. You have to include the contest URL with your mention; that’s the point. And if you use Twitter, put my handle @chucksambuchino at the middle or the end, not at the very beginning of the tweet, or else the tweet will be invisible to others.)

Here is a sample TWEET you can use (feel free to tweak): New FREE contest for writers of Women’s Fiction http://tinyurl.com/jje3qaw Judged by agent @igagency, via @chucksambuchino