Back in October, I entered in Nathan Bransford’s Stupendously Awesome First Paragraph Contest, and was one of ten finalists out of 2200+ entries *toots horn*. I ended up placing in the top five, which made me super, super happy because:
1) That contest was the first time someone other than my lovely friends and family read any part of my manuscript and said “hey, this sounds interesting in a good way.” And that someone happened to be an incredibly well known, well respected literary agent.
2) Strangers voted for my paragraph. One of those strangers was a published YA author of an awesome book, Shadowed Summer, (*waves to Saundra Mitchell*). Other strangers were YA bloggers whose posts I read every day (*waves to YA Highway ladies*).
And now, there’s another contest I’m entering: literary agent Kathleen Ortiz is going to be slicing and dicing the query letter of 3 lucky contest participants! You can join in the fun here: http://kortizzle.blogspot.com/
Another reason I love contests? Getting my first paragraph ready for Nathan’s contest in October sparked me to take my book in a completely new direction; the direction it should have gone from the beginning. This contest might help do the same for my query.
Carry on.
Michelle Hodkin's Blog 
Julie
February 7, 2010
The query contest is w=one I haven't heard of. Congrats on placing top 5 in Nathan's contest. I entered both the first paragraph and the teen diary and didn't place in either. But it was fun and helped in a lot of ways.