War of the Words

At the moment with so much taking up my time, I’ve been unable to dedicate enough of it to blog entries – but I thought this bit of news was worthy of note, especially among aspiring writers.

Sci-Fi Now Magazine, in conjunction with my publishers, Tor, have just announced a novel writing competition called “War of the Words”, where any aspiring science fiction or fantasy novelist can submit three chapters and a synopsis in order to win a publishing deal with Tor, an imprint of Pan Macmillan.
All the details, including terms and conditions can be found at the Sci-Fi Now website, but just before you go there or dismiss the idea of entering, I’d like to throw in my ‘two penneth’ worth of thought…

This isn’t just a competition where the winner gets published in a one-off annual anthology, nor is it a cash prize, it’s something much, much better. You see, just because there is only one overall winner in this competition, this is also the opportunity to get your work seen by one of the major players in the genre publishing world without the need of an agent. Believe me when I say this, but that’s a big deal, and even though you might not win the main prize, Pan Macmillan are not daft. If they believe that your book has merit, they may well take further interest in what you’ve submitted even if you’re not the overall winner. The publishers are likely to take more than one punt on entrants in the competition if the quality is there.

I can say this from experience.

This competition is not too dissimilar to the novel writing competition held on Channel 4, judged by Pan Macmillan in 2004, where one overall prize was mooted, but the standard of submissions were so high, that a further five books were published under Pan, and then a further dozen entries were picked for the Macmillan New Writing imprint, mine included. So no, I didn’t win the Channel 4 writing competition, but what do you know? I’m now one of Pan Macmillan’s authors, as a direct result of entering that writing competition.

So, is it worth entering?
If you’re not published yet, then bloody hell yes!
The only catch is that you have until the 20th August to enter. So what are you doing wasting time reading this blog? Get writing!