The contest’s winning romance novel gets a publishing contract with Simon & Schuster and a $5,000 advance. Runner-up prizes, and no entry fee.
Calling all romance novelists! Entries are open for Gather.com’s “First Chapters Romance Writing Competition,” and the contest is free.
The process is fairly simple:
- Join Gather.com (a social and sharing network) if you haven’t already. It’s free.
- Polish and prepare your manuscript according to guidelines.
- Submit your first chapter to the romance writers’ group, and send the first two chapters to a contest administration site, all by August 22, 2007.
- Invite other people to join Gather, read chapters, and vote.
Other guidelines:
- You cannot have published a full-length book in any genre (subsidy publishing doesn’t count).
- You must be over 18 and living in the United States.
- Your chapters should be 2,000-5,000 words, your completed manuscript cannot exceed 100,000 words.
- Your romance should be “between a man and a woman, which captures the joy of falling in love,” any setting, no erotica.
What happens then? There are several rounds of voting and elimination, with the winner and runners-up announced on October 30, 2007.
All the specific details are included in the guidelines. Be sure to click on the bottom links – not all information appears on every page. Good luck to all romance writers, and for those who write in other subjects, it looks like other competitions are planned.
