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This contest sounds good, but I write children's novels. Would an agency for adult writing consider critiquing something YA or MG?

This contest is open to any genre, including YA.

Sounds fun!

Twitching! I love it!!

any hints on how often???

Sounds great. Twitch. Neat concept. No I'll just have to hope I look at the right time.

Woohoooo I can't wait to kumpstart my brain with all these free ideas about to flow out into tweetland!

Hope you can execute, tweeters, and execute fast!

Oh wait, the pitches will be Direct Msgs, right? So only the agents can read 'em?

This has me tempted to join Twitter, but no... I swore I wouldn't cave and join the next craze. I already have a MySpace and a Facebook account.

I. Will. Not. Twitter.

Sigh. I'll probably join later today. LOL.

can we pitch this as a DM (direct message) rather than an @ message? I would feel more comfortable with my pitch not being out in the public domain like that. If it is chosen, I don't mind, but its dangerous to put a pitch out there for all to see, wouldn't you say?

Great idea! Don't know if I did it right though. I posted mine and then checked and I think I missed the Stop Twitching deadline by, like, two seconds. Not sure if I'll have time to try again today. Full life, yanno. Best of luck to everyone who successfully navigates!

FREE IDEAS!!!! MINE TO MASSAGE AT WILL INTO SALABLE COMMODITIES!!!

Thnaks for the flow, yo!

"I would feel more comfortable with my pitch not being out in the public domain like that. If it is chosen, I don't mind..."

If it's chosen, you should mind even more, for then the idea has been validated (to the extent that 1 or 2 agents asking to see a project based on a short pitch constitutes validation), which should make idea seekers even more likely to borrow the concept for their own project.

The whole public idea broadcasting thing is, IMO, not in the best interest of aspiring writers. You do not need to be overly loose with ideas and concepts in this business. Yeah, I know, the execution is where it's reallt at, but still...It helps to start with a marketable concept.

Antoher thing to keep in mind with twitter is that htese tweets do not go away after they scroll off the current list. They'll be seqarchable in Google forever.

OK, for example, let me just pick a twitch at absolute random, first 1 I happened to see:

"Elle's dreams seem to be the memories of a girl murdered 17 yearsago. Can she solve the murder of her former self in time?"

While this concept in no way appeals to me personally, it's easy to see how I could adapt this into something that I execute as my own. (dreams = memories of murdered giirl). Particularly if I am already a contracted writer, and my concept-to-publication time is much less than the agent-less, completely unsigned, unknown writer. Not that most contracted writers don't have enough of their own ideas, but still...now I combine this concept with another one I've already been mulling over, and wham...I've cannabalized some unknown's plot and there's nothing she can do about it.

Aspiring writers: do yourselves a favor and stick to private channels when it comes to oitching your work.

A 140-character idea isn't going to do any would-be thieves any good. If every person who read this blog looked at the same 140-character idea and wrote a novel on it, every single novel would be different -- and no matter how good the basic idea was, only the ones who excelled in their execution would make it any further down the road toward publication.

I sincerely wouldn't stress about your logline being "stolen."

More twitching, please! Super-fun!

Agree that 10 writers writing from same pitch would yield 10 different novels.

Well, I deleted mine because I couldn't tell if it went through and if it went through by the deadline and I don't have time in my busy day to keep up and try to pitch the instant it opens when the chances of actually getting through are not good. There's always Query Shark! Best of luck to the rest of yas though.

Anons - do you know how hard it is to get access to an agent? And short pitches? That's a gift.

It's very hard to steal an idea. Stop scaring people. You're just being contrary and destructive.

You know, I'm usually over at Nathan's, and it is really striking that there are some (or one) anonymous posters here that are so hostile. It happens at Nathan's too, but less. I'm not sure why. Maybe because there are women in charge here. Or it could be a hold over from agentfail.

Either way, I don't like it. It feels like bullying to me. It also puts a glitch in potentially positive and friendly relationships.

What Bookends did today was generous and fun. I don't like what you're doing. It's unfair to the rest of the writers here. So if you see yourselves as advocates, think again.

And by women in charge, I mean women are more of a target.

Oh, I don't want to over-step here. If the leadership on the blog feels at any point that I'm over-stepping, please tell me. That's not my intention.

I just got so mad.

But I hope I don't interrupt the fun stuff.

"Well, I deleted mine because I couldn't tell if it went through and if it went through by the deadline..."

I'm no Twitter expert, but I'm pretty sure that deleting a tweet just means it's not visible in your own tweet history--if you sent it TO someone (ie @bookendskim), then they would still have it even if you deleted it.

Correct me if I'm wrong, anyone?

OK I missed both windows by a minute...because I had to rewrite the pitch since the @blah took up precious space. Can I resumbit?

I held off and held off -- finally, I joined Twitter at around midnight last night. Are we psychically connected?

Innovative. Have a boat? you're gonna be flooded, lol!

Now I have to look you both up on Twitter. I use it for my blog but I'm still learning my way.

Have fun.

Perhaps I missed this, but can we pitch non-fiction as well?

Yes. Nonfiction pitches are accepted.

And of course Twitter won't let me follow either of you! Grrrrrr...

I've tried to search for
www.twitter.com/BookEndKim - NADA
and I've tried to search this whole address and the phrase @bookendkim and again nothing. Pages that don't exist messages.
How to I find the tweeter sites to be ready?

I joined Twitter yesterday and....not savvy enough, I guess. Not getting it! I want to get it. I feel I should get it. But it just stares back at me and laughs at my glazed over expression. I don't know how to do it!! I have FB and granted, it took me awhile to catch on to that too, so maybe I'm techno-challenged. LOL. But I'd like to do this pitch so I'm trying!

Aloha Bookends and thanks for doing the twitter pitches--a fun way to get some book ideas concisely formulated and considered!

Any chance you'll do this again? I see this (and your blog) for the first time on June 27th...

Sounds really interesting. I'd buy it and I don't have kids.

Wow! You should totally sub this-- heck, it would have the zoo and museum market cornered!I agree -- I'd totally by this for my kids. I bet the photos would be awesome, and the kids love "Behind the scenes at the zoo" pieces....

Great idea. I would prefer funny illustrations, myself.

I love it. I'd really love to see an actual mirror on the facing page for the flamingos, a scratch-n-sniff mouthwash bottle for the panda, a squishy gel drawing panel for the gorillas, etc.Don't know if I like that title, though, finding neither rhinos nor garlic very appealing. Although, knowing my kids, it might be just the thing that sells it!

Oh my gosh! This is the book I'm working on- (my first that's not work-for-hire) - thank you, thank you!

This sounds really cute! I would have loved a book like this back when I was teaching pre-k and kindergarten. In regard to the pitch, I would list all five senses. As it is written here, there is no mention of the sense hearing. Also, it seems like the title should be more general about five ways to keep zoo animals happy versus “Rhinos.” Just a thought.

I agree -- great concept!EA, could you please explain your comment about not mentioning it's an early reader? Why are these books unprofitable vs. picture books? I would think the market for easy readers would be stronger than it appears to be.

Oh, and I'll drop the easy reader part!

It's possible the editor will prefer it as an early reader... but if there's a chance of it being a picture book, those retail for more money, so they're more profitable to author and publisher.

I truly doubt it could be an easy reader, anyway. You wouldn't use words like "Listerine" and "flamingo" if it were.

Great concept!Especially the rhino part. Focus on that, and your book will go far.

There's a fairly famous photograph of flamingoes (in a bathroom lined with mirrors) that I believe I saw in the Smithsonian Magazine and that image is one that is hard to get out of one's mind. As someone who loves to illustrate birds (and most animals), this image haunts me. They strike me as rather vein creatures...and I continue to bring this out in a book I have been writing for years. I love

Oh, I mean vain. All this talk about Edward is puncturing my spelling.

I actually snorted when I read your comment on this one.

Yay! My entry!Do I get extra credit for plagiarism? I lifted it from Lisa Alther's KINFOLKS.

I can just picture the illustrations. Charming.

May I have my kindergartners illustrate????Pretty please???

Geez, I'm going to have nightmares over this one.

Cool.... like the Rasputin of the elephant world....(I think the problem is this story doesn't really lend itself to a picture book--- it needs something with a bit more razzle dazzle--- a Chicago-style musical, complete with a reprise of "He had it coming" and a choris line of singing and dancing elephants! =) )

Well, now wait a minute...What if the character who was smashed was actually an ancient God of Chaos reborn to destroy civilisation and rule the Earth with terror? But the noble elephant (who was reborn as a slave-circus-elephant due to some terrible misguided crime in a past life) sacrifices herself to destroy him, saving not only her own soul and all the real children at the parade but the

Bwahahaha! The "For ages 3-7" just totally clinches it.

LOL!! This is a classic.:-)

Don’t know any, but lots of police departments have public outreach departments. They’ll often hook up writers and detectives, set up ride-alongs, and such. Worth a shot, anyway.

(Maybe I shouldn’t say “shot” when talking about cops…)

I hope this is work related.

What El said — I’d definitely call their PR rep and ask. Most likely, they have a policy where anyone you found is supposed to run it by that person before they talk to someone for research purposes anyway.

My brother-in-law is a beat cop in NYC, not in missing persons or homicides, but he might be useful…

does it have to be NYPD? because i bet if you asked really nicely, meg cabot would lend you Officer Friendly for a while.

(have capped NYPD and Officer Friendly for respect and stuffs, but after this post, i am back to no big letters again!)