St. Martin’s Minotaur/ Mystery Writers of America First Crime Novel Competition

St. Martin's is hosting a 2009 First Crime Novel Competiton for never-published writers. (Self-published authors will be allowed to enter as long as the work submitted is not the self-published novel). Murder or another serious crime or crimes must be at the heart of the story. They have a rather convulted procedure (maybe to weed people out?) You have to send off for an entry form to fill out by November 14, 2008.

From the website: All requests for entry forms must be received or postmarked by St. Martin's Minotaur at the address below by November 14, 2008. DO NOT SEND MANUSCRIPT SUBMISSIONS TO ST. MARTIN'S MINOTAUR. For copies of these rules and to request an entry form, please send a stamped, self addressed envelope to:

St. Martin's Minotaur/MWA Competition
St. Martin's Minotaur
175 Fifth Avenue
New York, New York 10010

Once you get the form, your entry must be postmarked on or before November 30, 2008 and received by December 15, 2008. No entry fee.

They recommend submitting your entry as soon as possible. Be sure to read the fine print carefully; there's a lot of it and people who follow the directions will prevail.

Each entrant will receive an entry form containing the address of the judge to whom he or she will send his or her manuscript. Entries must be postmarked no later than November 30, 2008 and received by judges no later than December 15, 2008

Bookhabit.com's Unpublished Writing Competition - The Contest that Pays You to Enter

Photo by Ian Wilson Creative Commons


Bookhabit.com is a website that partners with authors to sell their books online. The website keeps 60% and the author gets 40%. All books are priced between $2.50 and $5.00, with sale price determined by the popularity of the novel.

Now they are hosting Bookhabit.com's Unpublished Writing Competition. From now through May 5-11, writers can upload their book to the website and the 5 most popular books of the week plus one wild card go through to a 2nd round of the contest. Ten books from Round 2 go on to Round 3, where the winner is selected by a panel of judges. The books earn points during the first rounds from reader ratings and number of downloads.

The best part - you get paid.
All readers have to pay to download your book, and you share in the revenue. Is this an attempt to drum up more downloading readers for Bookhabit as you beg all your friends and family to download your book? Plus get the website a double serving of publicity from every author who promotes bookhabit.com on their blog or website? I'm pretty sure it is. But the prize is $5,000 and depending on your book, you may earn yourself enough for a nice steak dinner - or at least breakfast at Mickey D's.

What should you enter?
So if you have a manuscript that you think is too quirky, too long, too short, or too niche for the publishing world, you might want to consider entering. They're taking both fiction (any genre) and non-fiction. Manuscripts must be at least 50,000 words long.

For example, one winner this week is a romance novel, and one is a how-to book for new motorcyclists. Self-published books can be entered as long as they sold less than 500 copies. I wouldn't enter a book you haven't shopped around first to agents and editors, but if you feel your baby was misunderstood when you sent it out into the cold, cruel publishing world, you might want to bypass big publishing and go straight to the people - at least those willing to pay. Power to your peeps! Uh, not the yellow, sticky ones - your people. Good luck to everyone who enters.

Query on.

AWP Writing Contests

The Association of Writers & Writing Programs (AWP) is accepting literary book submissions for its contest series. There are four awards for:

• A book of poetry
• A book of collected short fiction
• A novel
• A book of collected non-fiction

Submissions are being accepted between January 1 and February 28, 2008 for all categories.

Entry fee: $25 for nonmembers and $10 for AWP members

Prizes:

• Donald Hall Prize in Poetry: $4,000 University of Pittsburgh Press


• Grace Paley Prize in Short Fiction: $4,000 Rhodes University of Massachusetts Press


• AWP Prize in Creative Nonfiction: $2,000 University of Georgia Press


• AWP Prize in the Novel: $2,000 New Issues Press

Novel Contests Roundup by C. Hope Clark On W.O.W

Got a novel manuscript burning a hole in your pocket? C. Hope Clark has a great article in her W.O.W. column about novel contests you can submit to while waiting for agents/editors to respond to your queries. She lists competitions for entire novels, excerpts, first chapters, and even first lines.