Smitten by Books

On April 23rd I will be holding another Pitch Contest and this time the publishing company is Ellora’s Cave and the judging editor is Grace Bradley. For those of you who have never heard of Ellora’s Cave, Grace Bradley has supplied me with this lovely blurb right off their website:

Ellora’s Cave ~ Romantica® and Exotika™

www.EllorasCave.com

Ellora’s Cave is THE place for erotic romances. Our site receives over 60,000 hits daily and averages sales of over 70,000 e-books per month. Our readership continues to grow by the thousands. Ellora’s Cave is ALWAYS open to new submissions of erotic romances. See the submissions page on our website for more information.

Ellora’s Cave Romantica® (erotic romances) must be both erotic and romantic.

~ The sexual relationship must be integral to and an important element of the storyline and the character development. Sex scenes should contribute to furthering the plot or affecting the development of the romantic relationship or the growth of the characters.

~ The story must include abundant and explicit sex and sexual tension, starting early and continuing throughout. Sex scenes must be described in graphic detail and explicit wording, not delicate euphemisms or purple prose.

~ The story must meet the definition of a romance novel: the primary focus must be on the development of a romantic relationship, and there must be an emotionally satisfying committed ending for the main characters.

We also publish Exotika™, our line of quality erotica for women. These stories focus on a woman’s sexual journey or adventures. Although they may contain a romance, they do not have that as the primary focus, the relationship does not need to be monogamous or end with commitment.

Story length is 10,000 to 125,000 words.

If you’re still uncertain about the definition of ‘Romantica’ and just how explicit the love scenes need to be, Grace will be stopping by March 29th to answer any questions you may have.

Now onto the rules. I’m listing them in order of importance, so please take note.

1. Accepting  pitches for novella and novel length manuscripts that are complete. And I mean complete as in polished and ready to go within a week of any possible requests.

2. The winner will receive a critique of the first 25 pages of your manuscript. Hopefully, Grace will want to contract your books (as well as others).

3. The pitches will be posted on this blog in the comment section on April 23rd. Posting will be open at 7:00 EST am.

4. The top 10 pitches will be chosen by Grace. The finalists will be asked to furnish the first 3 pages of their manuscript.

5. The pitch cannot be more than 150 words in length. Please include title and genre.

6. The winner will be asked to furnish the first 25 pages of their manuscipt  or 5000 words, whichever comes first. Please end at the end of a chapter. There is some wiggle room in page and word count in order to achieve this.

7. The finalists will be notified the week of May 10th.

Now it’s time to get moving on finishing, revising or polishing that manuscript. You have a month.