The second-ever #MoodPitch, a Twitter-based pitch contest, was on November 3rd, and it seemed even more successful and popular than the first. According to @moodpitchers’ tweets, it trended #1 for 6 hours and had around 45K tweets.

Yes, 45,000. That’s some good participation!

What was different this time? Well, sure, the sheer number of moodboards was different. But there was also some very neat animation in the moodboards. Some animation was contained in a single image. With others, there was animation moving across the board or the boards were assembled one image at a time to convey a sense of tension and suspense.

There was also a lot of support in the community. Was there support in the first #MoodPitch? Absolutely! Perhaps it was just that more writers were participating, but there seemed to be more RTs and comments than last time.

Also, in addition to the regular #PreMoodPitch activities (including pitch practice/feedback, query trivia, etc.), there was a Query Critique Webinar and #AskAgent! All in all, this feels like a well-planned and orchestrated pitch contest with loads of support for querying writers.

For the contest, I made some new moodboards and crafted two new pitches. Also, just like for the first #MoodPitch, I included ALT text and all my images were free to use. I didn’t mention ALT text in my last article. For those who aren’t sure what ALT text is, it’s a basic description you include with your moodboard image. When you upload the image to the tweet box, you will see ‘Add description’ in small type below the image. Click on this and it opens a box to enter your description.

Here is one of my moodboards:

This was my ALT text:

• Upper left: skull on mat with burnt-looking fruit
• Upper middle: five figures dancing on the desert sand at sunset
• Upper right: orange butterflies resting on desert flowers
• Middle left: yellow gecko perched on green plant
• Middle right: gold necklace laid out on grayish fabric
• Lower left: orange rose
• Lower left middle: multi-colored stones
• Lower right middle: stacks of colorful scarves
• Lower right: starry night in the desert with bushy trees

Once this is done, you will see ALT on the bottom left corner of the image. The viewer only has to click on ALT to see the text.

You may ask if ALT text is important, but there was an agent who mentioned that he would only look at pitches with ALT text.

I used one of my new pitches for this moodboard:

MIRRORWOOD X ELLA ENCHANTED

In a rainbow empire cursed to be at war, 11yo Maira becomes a wishgiver. But when her grieving sister avenges their Papa by poisoning the Exalted One, Maira must trick her own magic to save what’s left of her family.

Here is my second moodboard:

I had to screenshot this pitch because of formatting:

Final moodboard and pitch:

CECE RIOS x ELLA ENCHANTED

To help her grieving mom, 11yo Maira becomes a wishgiver. But the wishes backfire and land her mom in the Exalted One’s prison. Maira must outsmart the trap set by the last wish—and trick her own magic—or risk losing her mom forever.

For more information about #MoodPitch, check out the website: https://linktr.ee/moodpitchers. You can also follow @moodpitchers and the hosts – @kfoxx_writes, @jaimiehunter, and @lulalockwood on Twitter.

Feel free to comment with questions or thoughts below.

Thanks for reading!