WriteOnCon online kidlit writers' conference

I don't understand the point of twitter pitching because don't you just get an "invitation to query" out of it? I can understand that being useful if the agent you want is closed to queries but otherwise, why is twitter pitching better than just querying? You still have to have a great query, synopsis and MS either way. Or is it because it's easier to get passed over in the slush pile? Genuinely curious.

eparadysz, I think your MS sounds great! I loved your first 250. And thanks for critting mine!

sofia.e said:

eparadysz, I think your MS sounds great! I loved your first 250. And thanks for critting mine!

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Thanks! And likewise!

Sage said:

Actually, I think twitter pitches are great. The agent/editor almost always requests off them, and sometimes agents/editors you would never assume is a good fit shows interest and surprises you.

I don't know how the WOC twitches are working, since I'm not doing it because both my novels are in a state of revision, but that's how #pitmad and the like have worked out for me.

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Yeah, actually I did see some requests yesterday, but at the one today the responses were all "could be interesting but I want to know more about XYZ", which sounded to me like "I can't tell if I'm interested based on 140 characters."

Sage said:

Yeah, I think WoC has been more about agents helping with pitches. I have seen (in my stalkery ways) that some have been PMing folks in the forum, so I assume they are occasionally requesting privately (so as not to out their alter ego publicly). Some have been nicely critting in the forums, but not as much as you would hope.

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Yeah, there are definitely agents PMing participants. One of them messaged me requesting a full today, and I met another person who got one as well.

Taylor Kowalski said:

Yeah, there are definitely agents PMing participants. One of them messaged me requesting a full today, and I met another person who got one as well.

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OMG I totally saw this happen while ninja stalking. Saw one looking at your query and then PMing! Congrats!

It seems like a lot of them are just PMing (I heard from a couple) and a few are posting feedback fairly sporadically. I imagine it's pretty overwhelming for them to see that many entries and feel like they can make any sort of dent in commenting on them. I also suspect a lot of them are sorting by the genre they're interested in.

Yay, Taylor and Niiicola!!

I've been wondering if that was happening. I actually did get some great feedback from people so I'll take it as a win even if I don't get anything from an agent.http://www.pinterest.com/pin/create/extension/

I got some good feedback on my query, and some really thoughtful comments from AWers. But I'm not sure I'd do it again, *unless* an agent I targeted beforehand was participating. This seems like a scattershot or early-stage approach to me, otherwise.

Congrats on hearing from agents! Your stories were great Wooohooo!

This was a fun event to lurk around, and I enjoyed seeing so many people's queries and things. Although it was pretty overwhelming in the end, there were so many posts that got lost in the fray after only an hour or so up. I suppose that's what an agent's inbox is like all the time though, right? Which is terrifying.

That's great folks got ninja'd. Congratulations!!

I received some very good feedback and a ton of help with my query. I was expecting articles, or videos or something to that effect so in that way it was disappointing. I didn't have anything to pitch, so the twitter pitches were useless to me. Congrats to those that got ninja'd! That's awesome!

Taylor Kowalski said:

Yeah, there are definitely agents PMing participants. One of them messaged me requesting a full today, and I met another person who got one as well.

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Niiicola said:

It seems like a lot of them are just PMing (I heard from a couple) and a few are posting feedback fairly sporadically.

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Congratulations! That's awesome. I got a two sentence comment from a ninja on my query, so I guess that's something. But I'm very happy with the feedback I got from other folks and that was more than worth the entry price (it's free!) for me.

thisprovinciallife said:

I suppose that's what an agent's inbox is like all the time though, right? Which is terrifying.

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From that perspective, it's pretty interesting to see the kinds of things that are probably in agent inboxes (the similarities and differences in types of projects, subject matters, etc.).

thisprovinciallife said:

Congrats on hearing from agents! Your stories were great Wooohooo!

This was a fun event to lurk around, and I enjoyed seeing so many people's queries and things. Although it was pretty overwhelming in the end, there were so many posts that got lost in the fray after only an hour or so up. I suppose that's what an agent's inbox is like all the time though, right? Which is terrifying.

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Thank you

I think in a lot of ways WOC is harder to get seen than a slushpile, because at least the slushpile is static, whereas the WOC feed never stays still. I have no idea how the agents kept track of stuff on there, unless they were searching/sorting by some way other than time of post. For example, the agent who commented on my query went through and read/commented on magical realism entries specifically. A lot of others seemed to be looking at/commenting on contemp, which was a much bigger pile of entries.

I think it was a great experience for a WIP because I got feedback at a time when I'm really open to revising. I wonder how open I'd be to switching things up if I'd already been querying the project. That's why QLH and SYW are so awesome here.

If you're just after requests, I still think querying is the best approach. That way you can send your stuff to exactly the people you want and be pretty sure they or their intern will actually see it. I feel like that's the case with contests too. Sure, it's an ego boost to get requests, but queries work just as well.

Anyway, I loved meeting and interacting with so many people and seeing how much insane talent there is out there.

So I just wanted to add 2 cents here - the original organizers of WOC this year did not do it. They were all new, and I think it was a last minute thing because for a while it didn't look like WOC was even happening. I'm glad it did but I do think it was lacking in the craft posts that they used to have. I loved those!

And about Twitter pitches - I used to think "what's the point? noooobody gets an agent off of these things (like #pitmad etc.)". Well the universe had its jokes on me. I did #PitMad last March and two agents requested. One of them requested the full and then offered a week later; I signed with her.

I did some critiquing in WOC this year and it felt very difference since I wasn't posting my own stuff. All in all, I think - for the most part - the feedback is solid there. It's kind of like SYW here.

I love twitter pitches as well. I did #pitmad and #pitchmas. Failed miserably at one, did ok in the other, and got my agent indirectly from one. They're as fun for me to watch as to participate in because a) writer friends! and b) seeing what other people are working on/what people are interested in.

(Also I'm one of those sick people who likes coming up with 1-sentence descriptions and even queries [though I'm not that good at them] for my writing. They help me focus on the feeling/point of the novel I'm trying to write. I do them between every set of revisions and usually before a first draft.)

I looked at very little of WOC (I only commented on a few things I liked), but I got a good vibe from it.

It's rough to volunteer to run all of these contests, WOC, etc. I'm pretty impressed by anyone that puts that much time and heart into helping the writing community.

I hope the feedback from this year leads them to step back a little and revisit the earlier cons.

I felt the focus of the pitches was very YA. I pitched a chapter book and had little chance of the pitch even being considered. If I'd known, I'd have pitched something else.

I did hear good things about the forum and Ninja activity, but never got there myself. It was just bad timing for me. I also made some notes based on the chat sessions they did have.

I created twitter pitches for some of my other pieces based on what I saw pitched and the comments made. Tough not to sound generic in 140 characters.

All told it wasn't a wash out, but it has been better in the past. Here's hoping for an improved con next year.

I didn't have a completed ms to pitch on twitter, but I did get some great feedback on the query for my WIP. Thanks to everyone who critiqued, btw. It wasn't as much fun this year, but I'm glad I did it.