Fairy tales do come true--it could happen to you . . .

For their "grand opening" in September, the blog Operation Awesome ran a one-sentence pitch contest judged by a mysterious agent. They naively said that the contest would end at 50 pitches or the end of September, whichever came first--they had their 50 entries in twelve hours!

I entered fairly early, and kept badgering my critique partners to do the same before all the slots were taken. The badgering paid off for one of those partners when she caught the eye of the agent, Mandy Hubbard. Nancy didn't even win the prize of a full read, just a mention that her pitch sounded intriguing; she still had to go through the query-full-phone call process. (Gaah--I couldn't sleep at all when Nancy told me she'd gotten an email asking a good time to call!)

Well, she ended up signing with Mandy Hubbard and got an agent out of the contest! Here is Nancy Herman's story. So now you know these contests work!

P.S. Operation Awesome has been dropping hints that they are about to run another contest, so be sure to check their site often!