Michele LeNoir
Hear Our Voices! by Michele LeNoir
Hear Our Voices! shout fascinating, young adult refugee immigrants who struggle, albeit with humor and gratitude, to acclimate to the USA.
You could read Homeland Security’s annual yearbook–pages of statistics–stats per foreign country, for each state’s intakes, for human trafficking victims, and more! But no human faces, no stories. No worries; I gotcha with A-Z chapter “Voices.” Like Voice O: Oo Meh, who wandered her family’s small, dank apartment, confused by no elevator. Don’t all Americans have elevators? And Voice F: Frederic Ndayirukiye, now mentored by a well-known artist, whose father allows him to go to college, as long as he works thirty-six hours in the factory to help pay bills. And Voice Y: EstefannY Hernandez, who tells how she was rescued from human trafficking in Mexico and became a proud legal citizen.
But this born-in-the-USA woman to tell their stories? Well, yes. They first shouted them out to me as their teacher and to one another in a dual-credit speech course in an international high school. Now graduated, they still share their stories, their goals, their needs. And I still teach them–some how to drive, some how to survive college on ZERO family savings. Think of this nonfiction book of 91,500 words as a condensed telling of the many immigrant stories available, like Lauren Markham’s The Brothers Far Away and Abdi Nor Iftin’s Call Me American.
Hear Our Voices! They shout; I shout; you will shout once you know more.
Oh, and yes, there are some pictures.
Vote for your favorite pitch. The pitch that receives the most votes will be named Fan Favorite, and the author will receive a free one-hour consult with us (worth $250).
Click here to listen to our feedback on this pitch.
Beth Burnett
Revenge Prose by Beth Burnett
Revenge is a dish best served published, or so Crystal and Susan find out. Dumped by their significant others, Crystal, a stripper with a heart of, well, not exactly gold but certainly good intentions, and Susan, a happy homemaker and full-time supporter of her perpetual student husband, find themselves newly single and in a bit of a financial pickle. It’s Susan who bubbly suggests to practical Crystal that they start writing revenge prose – stories in which ugly, hairy men are killed in interesting and hilarious ways. Their stories go viral, thanks to the unsolicited help of Crystal’s new acquaintance and potential love interest, and the women find themselves reliving the past as exes try to sabotage their success. If Crystal can learn to trust and Susan can learn the power of saying no and together, they might build the foundation of a promising publishing future.
Vote for your favorite pitch. The pitch that receives the most votes will be named Fan Favorite, and the author will receive a free one-hour consult with us (worth $250).
Click here to listen to our feedback on this pitch.
Brianna Bolduc
Untitled by Brianna Bolduc
Rowan Lucas is pretty much like any other sixteen-year-old girl. She lives with her aunt Hannah and cousin April in futuristic New Earth, where space shuttles replace cars, and everyone rushes to buy the newest version of the Holopad. She’s Japanese American and can always be spotted wearing her beloved red Converse high tops with the rubber peeling off the toe and the red color slowly retreating. Rowan has her own teenage problems, trying to live up to her cousin’s expectations, dealing with the aftereffects of a war that happened fifteen years ago, and of course being a teenager, but when her cousin accepts a job from the president himself, Rowan knows something is wrong. With the help of a police-officer-in-training that has his own mysteries and his younger brother that is pretty much a mastermind, Rowan decides to figure out the truth about her cousin’s acceptance of the mysterious job offering while also trying to figure out more about the police guy that she doesn’t really know without being weird about it.
My work does not currently have a title, sorry about that. My name is Brianna and I am fourteen years old. My work was written as part of my first NaNoWriMo, which I took part in this year. It is just under 36,600 words and is a YA sci-fi mystery about sticking up for what you believe in and the true meaning of family, even if that means traveling to a different planet to figure out why exactly your cousin left you for some presidential job. I was inspired by Hank Green’s “An Absolutely Remarkable Thing”, which is also a sci-fi and the characters in Marissa Meyer’s Lunar Chronicles series.
Vote for your favorite pitch. The pitch that receives the most votes will be named Fan Favorite, and the author will receive a free one-hour consult with us (worth $250).
Click here to listen to our feedback on this pitch.
Kristina Cooper
Library Hell by Kristina Cooper
“Monica and Becky are gluing sparkles onto paper ducks,” writes Anne Hayes in an email to a coworker. “Just another day in the lunatic asylum.” Anne wants to catalog her journals in peace, but the university library where she works attracts crazy employees the way a black hole sucks in light. The serials librarian squeaks and sighs and hoards campus mail in numbered boxes. Her husband, the cataloging librarian, wears his jeans pulled up to his neck and knocks over library carts when enraged. Monica Sharpe, a recent hire, is obsessed with organizing “Fantastic Flock Fridays” and winning the Dynamic Duck contest. This contest, named after the university’s mascot, was created by the PR department in an effort to rally employee morale at the financially struggling Lakeville University.
As the academic year trudges on, unhappy library staff vent their hostilities at meetings while the director hides in his office and composes desperate emails calling for staff harmony. When Anne mocks a Fantastic Flock Friday event, she becomes the target of Monica’s increasingly unhinged attempts to win the Dynamic Duck contest and gain campus-wide fame as a Team Leader Who Solves Problems—Anne being the Problem. To keep her job (and her sanity), Anne will have to get a little crazy to fight crazy.
A series of emails exchanged between coworkers reveals the story of a library staff striving to stay relevant in a paperless world that is redefining what “higher education” means—and to do so without killing each other.
Vote for your favorite pitch. The pitch that receives the most votes will be named Fan Favorite, and the author will receive a free one-hour consult with us (worth $250).
Click here to listen to our feedback on this pitch.
Tonya Preece
More Than Meets the Eye by Tonya Preece
Seventeen-year-old Cordelia never lets anything get her down, but when the anniversary of the explosion that killed her dad triggers nightmares and panic attacks, her mom insists on counseling. The diagnosis: PTSD. Treatment: eye movement therapy. Cordelia’s opinion: absurd. Therapy does have a bright side, though—a hot guy named Gino she meets in the waiting room. Gino’s pop-punk style and sense of humor grab her attention.
As they bond over music, the discovery of why he’s in therapy softens her tough exterior but sharing her own tragedy with him raises questions surrounding her dad’s death. While she isn’t entirely sure she wants to find answers, eye movement therapy begins to defy her expectations. Repressed memories surface that could hold the key to what’s causing her pyrophobia and nightmares.
Cordelia’s recovery hinges on allowing certain walls and pedestals to crumble. First, she must face painful truths, not only about herself, but also the father she idolized. If she isn’t careful, her avoidance habits may push everyone away, including Gino, the musical soulmate she’s always hoped for.
MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE is contemporary YA fiction and was selected as a finalist for the Joan Lowery Nixon Memorial Award at the 2018 Houston SCBWI conference. It will appeal to fans of Carolyn Mackler and Emery Lord and delivers a surprising twist like Tamara Ireland Stone’s Every Last Word. I consulted a therapist trained in Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) and drew on my own experience with the treatment as well.
Vote for your favorite pitch. The pitch that receives the most votes will be named Fan Favorite, and the author will receive a free one-hour consult with us (worth $250).
Click here to listen to our feedback on this pitch.
Malavika Kannan
All The Yellow Suns by Malavika Kannan
Vincent Van Gogh was an incurable artist. He couldn’t help eating yellow paint. Fifteen-year-old Maya Kaimal is an incurable idealist. She couldn’t help falling for Juneau Zale the day she immigrated to the United States.
A human tidal wave and Renaissance masterpiece combined, Juneau is the de facto leader of the Pugilists: a merry band of highschool mischief-makers who right the wrongs of the world each Friday. Immediately, Maya finds herself drawn to Juneau and her boundless way of living. They forge a friendship over trips to the Metropolitan Museum, crusades for social justice, and life-or-death escapades in the colorful inner-city neighborhood of Columbia Heights.
But as their bond grows stronger, Maya begins to suspect that there’s a whole different person beneath Juneau’s painted-on facade. The harder she looks, the farther she finds herself from the girl she once idealized. Because without meaning to, she’s allowed Juneau Zale to steal a piece of her heart. Now, she will never be the same.
All The Yellow Suns is written by an Indian-American teenage activist, exploring Gen-Z themes of race, womanhood, and justice with refreshing candor and depth. Told through poignant and philosophical vignettes, it follows Maya’s journey to Find The Truth in Juneau’s mysterious, mixed-up world. The girl she loves is counting on her.
About the author
Malavika Kannan is an 18-year-old Indian-American student activist, writer, and speaker. She’s written about topics like race and feminism for the Washington Post, Huffington Post, Teen Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, Broadly, and VICE, among other places. Her writing has also been recognized by organizations including the National YoungArts Foundation, Scholastic Art & Writing, Library of Congress, and the J.F.K. Library. Malavika is passionate about progressive politics, serving on the national Women’s March Youth Cohort and March For Our Lives to amplify youth power in politics. She is also founder and executive director of the Homegirl Project.
Vote for your favorite pitch. The pitch that receives the most votes will be named Fan Favorite, and the author will receive a free one-hour consult with us (worth $250).
Click here to listen to our feedback on this pitch.
Ninth Annual NaNoWriMo Pitchapalooza
You wrote your 50,000 words (or got pretty close!). You’re a winner. You felt the high. Now what are you going to do with your precious manuscript? That’s where we, The Book Doctors, come in.
For those of you not familiar with Pitchapalooza, here’s the skinny: You get 250 words to pitch your book. Twenty pitches will be randomly selected from all submissions. We will then critique the pitches during a live webinar on March 16, 2019 at 12PM PT / 3PM ET, so you get to see what makes a great pitch. At the end of the webinar, we will choose one winner from the group.
The winner will receive an introduction to an agent or publisher appropriate for his/her manuscript.
Beginning February 1, 2019, you can email your pitch to nanowrimo@thebookdoctors.com. PLEASE DO NOT ATTACH YOUR PITCH, JUST EMBED IT IN THE EMAIL. Include your title and your name at the top of your pitch. All pitches must be received by 11:59PM PST on February 28, 2019.
We will also crown a fan favorite who will receive a free one-hour consult with us (worth $250). On March 17, 2019, the 20 random pitches will be posted on our website, www.thebookdoctors.com. Anyone can vote for a fan favorite, so get your social media engine running as soon as the pitches go up! Connecting with your future readers is a vital part of being a successfully published author today. And this is a great way to get some practice. Voting closes at 11:59PM PST on April 1, 2019. The fan favorite will be announced on April 2, 2019.
If you purchase a copy of our book, The Essential Guide To Getting Your Book Published, by April 2, 2019, we’re offering an exclusive one-hour webinar where you’ll get the chance to pitch your book. Just attach a copy of your sales receipt to your email and we’ll send the link to the webinar dates.
Important NaNoWriMo Pitchapalooza dates
Friday, February 1, 2019–Pitch submission opens
Thursday, February 28, 2019–Final day to submit pitches
Saturday, March 16, 2019–NaNoWriMo Pitchapalooza live on YouTube
Sunday, March 17, 2019–Voting for fan favorite begins
Monday, April 1, 2019–Final day to vote for fan favorite
Tuesday, April 2, 2019–Fan favorite announced
NaNoWriMo Pitchapalooza success stories
It’s been a great year for past NaNoWriMo Pitchapalooza winners. Gloria Chao’s novel American Panda (Simon Pulse/Simon & Schuster) released to multiple starred reviews. Read Gloria’s winning NaNoWriMo Pitchapalooza pitch.
Cari Noga’s novel The Orphan Daughter (Lake Union Publishing) published in May. Read Cari’s winning pitch.
May Cobb’s novel Big Woods (Midnight Ink) came out in July. Read May’s winning pitch.
Stacy McAnulty is now the award-winning author of 19 books for young readers. She launched her middle grade novel The Miscalculations of Lightning Girl with multiple starred reviews and a spot on the Indie Next List. Read Stacy’s winning pitch.
“Winning Pitchapalooza gave me confidence and the courage to keep fighting. It also helped bring my manuscript to the next level.”
–Gloria Chao
Are you feeling a little unsure about exactly how to craft your pitch?
10 tips for pitching your novel
- A great pitch is like a poem. Every word counts.
- Make us fall in love with your hero. Whether you’re writing a novel or memoir, you have to make us root for your flawed but lovable hero.
- Make us hate your villain. Show us someone unique and dastardly whom we can’t wait to hiss at.
- Just because your kids love to hear your story at bedtime doesn’t mean you’re automatically qualified to get a publishing deal. So make sure not to include this information in your pitch.
- If you have any particular expertise that relates to your novel, tell us. Establishing your credentials will help us trust you.
- Your pitch is your audition to show us what a brilliant writer you are, so it has to be the very best of your writing.
- Don’t make your pitch a book report. Make it sing and soar and amaze.
- A pitch is like a movie trailer. You start with an incredibly exciting/funny/sexy/romantic/etc. close-up with intense specificity, then you pull back to show the big picture and tell us the themes and broad strokes that build to a climax.
- Leave us with a cliffhanger. The ideal reaction to a pitch is, “Oh my God, what happens next?”
- Show us what’s unique, exciting, valuable, awesome, unexpected, about your project, and why it’s comfortable, familiar and proven.
NaNoWriMo Pitchapalooza FAQs
Q: May I submit more than one pitch?
A: Yes, you may submit multiple pitches. Please include your book’s title and your name at the top of each pitch.
Q: How long is a pitch?
A: You get 250 words to pitch your book.
Q: How are the 20 pitches selected?
A: The 20 pitches are randomly selected; however, we read all the pitches.
Q: Are the choices for fan favorite also randomly selected?
A: Yes. They are the same 20 pitches that we read during the webinar.
Q: If I buy a copy of The Essential Guide to Getting Your Book Published, how does the one-hour webinar work?
A: We limit each webinar to 20 people, which gives everyone the chance to pitch and get feedback.
Q: Where can I learn more about writing my pitch?
A: We offer resources on our YouTube channel. We recommend that you watch “The Art of the Book Pitch”, last year’s NaNoWriMo Pitchapalooza, and our Pitch Tips playlist. Hungry for more examples? Check out our Pitchapalooza playlist.
NaNoWriMo Pitchapalooza 2018 Winners!
Nano Nation: You are all WINNERS! We had such a blast with this year’s National Novel Writing Month Pitchapalooza. So many pitches with AWESOME imagination and an ASTOUNDING display of talent. Thank you so much to all the writers who participated in this year’s NaNoWriMo Pitchapalooza!
AND THE WINNER IS …
This year’s Fan Favorite is CLARE VATERLAUS BIRD for her book The Cost of Silence! Her pitch is timely, full of stakes, and has a terrific title. She gets a free one-hour consultation with us (worth $250). Congratulations, Clare!
Kudos again to MARY JO TALBOT, NaNoWriMo Pitchapalooza winner for Watching Wilhemina, a middle grade novel about a rock-guitar loving girl, her diagnosis with type 1 diabetes, and her discipline-challenged service dog. Mary Jo will receive an introduction to an agent or publisher appropriate for her manuscript.
We hope you’ll keep in touch. If you’d like to receive monthly publishing tips delivered to your inbox, click here to let us know. We’ll also share info about our live Pitchapaloozas and workshops around the country. Get publishing tips on our YouTube channel, and chat with us on Facebook and Twitter.
We’re hosting a live Pitchapalooza in Brielle, New Jersey on May 1. We’ll announce our special guest judges soon. Come pitch us at the Brielle Public Library.
Starting April 18, we’re leading an eight-week master class that’ll teach you how to get your book successfully published in today’s ridiculously competitive marketplace. We hope you can join us. Learn more here.
Congratulations again to Clare, Mary Jo, and all the Wrimos who bravely shared their awesome pitches.
NaNoWriMo Pitchapalooza 2018
Nano Nation delivered yet another batch of pulse-pounding pitches for NaNoWriMo Pitchapalooza 2018! A Midwest Strangler and Chupacabra; inheritance and identity, love and conspiracies; a beatnik disc jockey and the threat of nuclear annihilation; a 12-year-old author; opium smugglers and sex traffickers: once again, we were totally blown away by the diversity and quantity of pitches we received. But of course we’ve come to expect this level of excellence from NaNo Nation. The Book Doctors had an absolute blast swimming in this vast pool of pitches.
Now for the 411: The 20 pitches were selected randomly. You can watch the recording of NaNoWriMo Pitchapalooza to hear our feedback. It’s our mission to try to help all you amazing writers not just get published, but get published successfully. That’s why we’ve told you what works, but also what needs to be improved.
But don’t let our opinion sway your vote. What story intrigues you? What pitch would prod you from the couch to the bookstore (or, if you’re really lazy, to buy it online)? The pitch that receives the most votes by 11:59 p.m. PDT on April 1, 2018 will be awarded the Fan Favorite, and the author will receive a free one-hour consult with us (worth $250). We’ll announce the Fan Favorite on April 2, 2018.
But please note: YOU CAN ONLY VOTE ONCE! So please choose carefully. Don’t just read the first couple of pitches — read them all. You owe it to your fellow Wrimos. Encourage your friends, family and random strangers to vote for you via the link to the poll. Connecting with your future readers is a vital part of being a successfully published author today. And this is a great way to get some practice.
We will also be posting these pitches—a couple a day–on social media. We encourage anyone to like your entry but only poll votes from the webpage will count toward the Fan Favorite.
Finally, through April 2, 2018, we are still offering a free webinar (worth $75) to anyone who buys a copy of our book The Essential Guide To Getting Your Book Published. Just email a copy of your receipt to nanowrimo@thebookdoctors.com and we’ll be in touch to set up a webinar.
Write on, Wrimos!
NaNoWriMo Pitchapalooza 2018 Voting
Click the writers' names to read their pitches. Then vote for your favorite.
- The Cost of Silence by Clare Vaterlaus Bird (29%, 388 Votes)
- Jihadi Bride by Alastair Luft (19%, 262 Votes)
- The Library of Unspoken Things by Lucy Hallowell (11%, 146 Votes)
- All The Stars Are Gone by Anna Downes (9%, 117 Votes)
- The Cyber Trials by Heather Ryder (8%, 112 Votes)
- The Bronze Mirror by Melissa Bennight (8%, 103 Votes)
- Watching Wilhemina by Mary Jo Talbot (4%, 60 Votes)
- And The Floods Came Up by Angie Romines (4%, 50 Votes)
- The Weight of a Woman by J. Jackson Pomeroy (3%, 45 Votes)
- The Prince of Little Palestine by Moe Shalabi (2%, 23 Votes)
- Audrina's Moments by H.M. Shander (2%, 22 Votes)
- Iron and Lace by Ellie Tupper (1%, 7 Votes)
- Nitza and the Chupacabra by Hannah Carmona Dias (0%, 5 Votes)
- Where Are You Really From by Samantha Mae Coyiuto (0%, 5 Votes)
- Cookie Rookie by Victoria Beck (0%, 3 Votes)
- Landslide by Emma Burns (0%, 3 Votes)
- Alliance by Tara Liem (0%, 2 Votes)
- Godsblood by Daniel T. Moore (0%, 1 Votes)
- Casey’s Star by Mike Drew (0%, 0 Votes)
- South Bay Beat by Joyce Krieg (0%, 0 Votes)
Total Voters: 1,354
Samantha Mae Coyiuto
Where Are You Really From by Samantha Mae Coyiuto
After her first semester in USC, Chloe takes the dreaded 12-hour flight back home to the Philippines for winter break. She gets the shock of her life when her Instagram-loving dad suddenly invites her boyfriend to her cousin’s wedding. To clarify, this is the boyfriend her dad hates because he’s Filipino and to her dad, Chinese people only date other Chinese people. But Chloe can’t celebrate her dad’s change of heart because she and her boyfriend broke up months ago.
Thanks to her meddling Auntie’s offers to matchmake Chloe, she goes on five dates with five different Chinese boys. The only problem is that they are all arranged by her dad without her consent. In other words, everything is freaking awkward.
Aside from battles in her love life, Chloe struggles with fighting for her dream to become an animator. When she draws, she feels like she can make art that actually matters. She keeps trying to make her dad understand, but all she wants is for her to take over his denim-manufacturing business.
The more she spends time back in Manila, the more she feels torn between her life in America and her past life in the Philippines. It doesn’t help that she unexpectedly starts to fall for an aspiring dentist that her dad sets her up with. The big question is: is going for her dreams worth leaving behind her family?
WHERE ARE YOU REALLY FROM is a contemporary YA novel based on my life as an Americanized Chinese-Filipina.
Vote for your favorite pitch. The pitch that receives the most votes will be named Fan Favorite, and the author will receive a free one-hour consult with us (worth $250).
Listen to our feedback on Where Are You Really From.