The second Round for this year’s Red Light, Green Light contest is open for submissions!

*Update posted 2/24 at 5:30PM CST: All Round 1 results have been given. If you didn’t hear anything on your ROUND 1 submission, let us know. Round 2 closes tonight so get your next page in if you passed.

Some stats to give you some idea of where you stand:

Chances of publication among the general populous in real life: <1%, roughly. We’re making that # up, but we know it’s not off the mark, given the # of manuscripts submitted to agents and publishers in general.  Look at how many we got just from our little RLGL alone within a very short period?

In RLGL, Over 50% of entries in Round 1 were sent back to Start. This means we cut a lot of people breaks if we felt that there was enough there to warrant flipping the page. But over 1/2 of the entries was Kissy fodder in the first 125 words. (The percentage of PB manuscripts that were sent back is probably much higher than novels. We’re going to make that easier to report in the future. But for now, just know many more PBs got sent back because you don’t have that many words to work with to get Kissy’s attention. )

As you might guess, as Kissy reads the next page, even more submissions will become dessert when our suspicions that the work won’t be strong enough to go to the next page hold true. So look over those codes and think about all the reasons why a manuscript can get rejected. Are you doing any of that? Can you save your work in the next page? Only time will tell!

*Another update posted 2/24 at 3:15PM CST:  To expedite our review process, and given the volume of entries we are receiving, we are reinstating feedback codes to deliver your results. There’s no time to be able to tailor our responses as much as we’d like. But this should still give you a good idea.  Check out this page for common reasons why your manuscript may be sent back to start.  If you receive a code, you can look it up on this page to find out what went wrong. Thanks for understanding!*

*This does not mean that we are done returning ALL results from Round 1. It just means Round 2 is open for new entrants and any previous entrants who have received their results from Round 1.

When we have returned all results, that will be noted in this post. So please don’t ask about your submission until it is clear that all results have been returned. Thank you!*

Also a number of you are not formatting the title of your files properly. See Step 9 in the Rules. Don’t change it now but in the next Round you enter, (if Kissy isn’t fed up by then), be sure to name that file correctly. All files should be named something like “PB Kissy Needs You to Title Your FILES More Specifically.doc or “MG The Way The Bacon Crumbles.doc” or “YA I Just Ate Something That Didn’t Agree with Me.doc”

Another Update for future Rounds: I think Kissy forgot to put in the rules that works submitted to RLGL should be Fiction or Creative Nonfiction works meant for the PB, ER, CB, MG, and YA formats and also a major trade publisher like a Penguin Random, HarperCollins, S&S, along with others like Candlewick and so on who sell into schools, retail bookstores like Barnes & Noble, and indies.

If you have a magazine story, board book, or nonfiction work, do not submit it to this contest as Kissy does not have those particular hats on when reviewing your submissions. Also board books, by nature of their brevity, won’t work well for this contest and in general, are ghostwritten or written in-house, derived from a PB format or other work, or written by writers who are already established with a major trade publishing house. In other words, unless you already have an in, it’s tough to break into that market and/or get an agent with a board book manuscript.

Magazine stories are not Kissy or Cynthea’s specialty, and this website is focused on major trade publication and not how to get published with Highlights, Cricket and so on which falls under the Children’s magazine market – which has its own market dynamics and considerations. So we don’t feel like we should be trying to advise people on their magazine stories. Do not try to force fit your magazine story into this contest. We can spot short stories versus PBs pretty quickly and you will get sent back to start.

Finally, we will not look at nonfiction work either as that is a whole other beast to contend with and has it’s own unique qualities and styles.  Creative nonfiction, however, is okay as usually it is the story itself that drives the work more so than all the other elements that makes good straight-up nonfiction, great. *

BEFORE YOU DO ANYTHING, look at our Rules and Regulations.

Once you’ve got that all figured out, click that submit button at the bottom of this post.

Round 2 will be closing submissions on Wednesday instead now (2/24/16) @ 11:59 CST to give Kissy more time to work through the manuscripts.

New entrants can enter anytime though, even if you miss a Round.

Anything can happen in this game, so get in when a round is open. Please help us make this even more fun by letting others know what’s going on and inviting them to join in on the competition! #RLGL is the official tag.

Good luck, everyone! WOOF!

<!-- Link to the Writing for Children and Teens submission manager. --->