Around here, when we offer a contest, we work up some nifty title madness, hook the winners up with some Amazon lovin’ and lately, send out books in volumes enough to make the post office man weep into his blue blue shirt. Our cover art contest did yield some freelance work for the amateur winner, too.
But Gather.com’s First Chapters Romance Writing Competition offers a HELL of a prize:
On August 1, 2007, Gather will launch the First Chapters Romance writing competition in conjunction with Simon & Schuster’s Pocket Books imprint and Borders enabling a talented Gather member to win a guaranteed publishing contract along with a $5000 cash advance!
Here’s How It Works: Starting August 1 through August 22, aspiring romance novelists will have the opportunity to submit a full-length romantic fiction manuscript for consideration.
Damn. A contract? Now that’s freaking RAD. Of course, I find out about it the day before the deadline, so my pimpage is worth squat, but woo-nelly. That is SOME contest.
A graceful curtsey to Qadesh for the info.
I know we have to have at least one member of the Bitchery with an absolutely blazing first chapter just sitting on their hard drive looking for a home. Come on gang, do us proud!
Not to be picky Sarah, but there isn’t a “u” in Qadesh. I know, the spelling is weird. What can I say, I thought it sounded kewl.
However, there are tricky contract-like bits in the rules. You can only submit it to this contest—no other current subs—and you automatically sign your MS over to Simon & Schuster if you win. It’s a little Borg-ish.
Just a first chapter?
OK, I’ll start typing now.
lovelysalome, if someone doesn’t have a deal or a manuscript submitted someplace else, why not? I heard about the contest on NPR, apparently they recently completed another one and the contest submissions were so high they choose two winners, a grand prize and runner-up. As I understand it Border’s is on board to give those books prominent placement in their stores. For those members of the Bitchery who don’t have a contract this might be their ticket. I wish everyone good luck.
I don’t mind the rules, but I can’t participate. Many writers will be kept out because of this clause. I know few writers actively seeking publication who have completed MMS hanging around that they aren’t in the process of subbing. And Simon & Schuster still hasn’t come completely clean about the ForeverRites issues.
Najida, it has to be the whole MS. You sub chapter one for round one, chapter two for round two—but the whole MS has to be emailed to the contest folks before the deadline, which is tomorrow. 100K max.
Well damn!
I guess I can’t even pull an all nighter either 😉
I wonder why this hasn’t gotten more attention? I heard it on NPR tonight, too, and was coming to see if the bitches knew. Of course they do. *love*
I should go read the rules. I have a chapter or two. lol
I went and registered, and you have to submit an entire manuscript. Damn. I’m not that far along, but if I had known, I could have pulled some all nighters and probably finished it.
Amanda, when I heard about it on NPR I figured it was going to be up and running for September. I was a bit shocked when I went to their website and saw it was over with tomorrow. I can’t believe none of us had heard of it until now.
Oh, and thanks to the SB fairy who corrected my name.
I’ve got an MS that is nearly done—I’mma spend the rest of the night and all tomorrow finishing it up so I can submit it. I’m at 60k words, I can write another 15k in 20 hours, right?
…right???
RIGHT!
Go Vaughan, go Vaughan. Rah, rah, rah!
Thought you might need a bit of a cheerleader. *g*
I submitted, but I’m not hopeful. I break too many of the romance genre’s unwritten rules and am too stubborn to want to change! For instance, if my hero and heroine have other off-page sex partners when they are not together, I don’t see that as a problem. Also, I like to write first person sometimes, because the inside of my heroine’s head is at least as interesting to me as the rest of her world, and MORE interesting to me than what color her eyes are or what she eats for breakfast. And flaws? I like to write about flawed people who react badly and do dumb things but who eventually do learn from their mistakes. Of course, that kind of learning doesn’t take place in the first few chapters, and that makes me suspect that I may never get published. Doesn’t mean I won’t keep writing, though. Writing isn’t a choice for me, it’s a necessity.
My spaminator word is freedom52. Heh.
I submitted, but what with the late notice, had no time to proofread… (I can’t believe with the amount of time I spend on the ‘mance-web that I hadn’t heard of this earlier!) Now I notice that the conversion to Word scattered typos and ate words here and there. Fantastic. I’m going to ignore the roll of nausea this induces and just remind myself that between submitting with typos and not submitting, the former was preferable. Though not by much.
GAH.
OK, off to work…
You go, bitches! *claps furiously*
It really is annoying, because with any sort of notice, those of us who are putzing around with a book could have spent less time scrubbing toilets and folding laundry and more time writing.
Still, when I registered last night, there were about 870 group members, which is a pretty small group, all things considered.
Good luck to y’all!
Y’all may want to read what Victoria Strauss had to say on this subject. Here’s the TinyURL to the Writer Beware blog entry:
http://tinyurl.com/35tql2
Be sure to read the comments thread.
Summary: the contest is legit, though suffers from poor methodology and may be rigged or at least skewable. BIG caveat on the problems with Simon and Schuster’s “standard” contract.
I can’t believe none of us had heard of it until now.
You might want to subscribe to, or bookmark, a news feed with the search term “romance novel” or “romance contest”. (Go to Yahoo or Google News, do the search, then subscribe via RSS or bookmark the search-results URL.)
The news feed on my site’s front page found the Gather announcement a few weeks ago. Sorry I didn’t think to publicize it here.
The Gather contest is a writing version of American Idio—um, American Idol. Anonymous masses vote for a chapter, so if you know lots of people with access to lots of different computers, and those people will vote for you, you can win. After the initial meaningless popularity contest, a panel reads the entire manuscripts of the winners and they make their selections from those.
I read about the contest last night (8-20) right here and spent an hour following the guidelines for submission. I was just rejected (nicely with suggestions for improvement) by Samhain (I’d won one of the First Line spots), so I thought WTH? Go for it.
So I went for it.
For everyone who managed to submit, I say good luck.
Hey, so I posted here when I entered the contest, and I probably should have come back to update a while ago—but, what the hey, better late than never. Mine was one of the manuscripts that made it to the final five! (Per the contest rules, I submitted under my real name, Meredith, rather than my sexy nom de internet, Emma.)
Anyway, the winners are announced Tuesday. Keep your fingers crossed for me. 🙂