Please make sure you have read the rules of the Book Edit Writers’ Prize and that you meet our eligibility criteria

 Eligibility

• The competition is open to unpublished novelists. This means you must not have published a novel nor have a novel accepted for publication in any country, in print or online.

• To submit to the competition you must not currently have a literary agent.

• The competition is open to all unpublished British and/or UK-based novelists from backgrounds and communities currently under-represented in UK publishing. (See FAQs for more detail on this)

• You must be over 18 years of age to enter.

Rules of the competition

• Your submission must be the first 1000 words from a completed first draft of a novel. This is to ensure that if you are one of the winners and find that you get interest from an agent at the showcase, you are in a position to make the most of that opportunity.

• Your entry must be your own original work and must be written in English.

• You must include a synopsis (maximum 500 words) with your entry.

• We accept novel entries in all genres, including Young Adult, but NOT children’s books.

• Your 1,000 words must be sent as a word (doc. or docx.), rich text, or Pdf document. Please do not send links to Onedrive or GDrive files. 

• Name your attached file with the title of your work, NOT your name, so submissions can be judged anonymously. 

• Please use 12 point font, double space your work, make sure your pages are numbered, and put the title of the novel on every page, all of which is industry standard.

• Please include in your email a brief note on your writing experience to date.

• Please also include where you heard about the prize.

Important Information Regarding the Writers’ Prize

• Entries will be judged by the writer Deepa Anappara, in conversation with The Book Edit’s Emily Pedder and Rebekah Lattin-Rawstrone. The judges’ decisions are final and the selection team are not able to comment on individual entries.

• By entering, you confirm that you are eligible to do so and eligible to claim any prize you may win. The Book Edit may require you to provide proof that you are eligible to enter the competition.

• By entering the competition you also agree to give The Book Edit permission to publish your entry in the online anthology and to promote you and your work at the showcase and through marketing activity on the website and via social media channels. The winning writers will also be asked to submit a headshot and short author biography to be used for the showcase, anthology and promotional activity by The Book Edit.

• Copyright remains with the author.

• Entry to the competition implies acceptance of the rules and eligibility criteria as listed on this site.

• The Book Edit has good connections with many of the top literary agencies (e.g. The Ampersand Agency, Curtis Brown, Felicity Bryan, Conville and Walsh, The Good Literary Agency, Christine Green, Greene and Heaton, David Higham, The Ruppin Agency, United Agents), and will endeavour to invite as many Association of Author’s Agents as possible to the showcase. As with any event, however, attendance cannot be guaranteed and, in the unlikely event of a low turnout, unfortunately we will not be able to reschedule the showcase.

• While the ambition for the Writers’ Prize is that the showcase opens doors for the winning writers and helps forge connections between those writers and literary agents, connections which ultimately lead to the publication of their work, there are, of course, no guarantees that this will happen. We will do all we can to put the winning writers in front of the right people, and to give them the best possible chance of a real shot at being noticed by the industry, but it would clearly be remiss of us to promise that any of the winning writers will be signed by an agent. Although we very much hope they will, and many winners have done already done so.

• We will treat all information and submissions with the utmost confidentiality and will destroy all entries once the competition and showcase have concluded.

FAQs about the Writers’ Prize