A quick announcement, everybody: due to popular demand, personal appeal, and a few instances of outright begging, the deadline for the Author! Author! Rings True contest has been extended to at 6 p.m. in your time zone today. Let the masses rejoice!
That’s six more hours, for those of you who hadn’t been paying attention — an abundance of time. Since the entry requires only materials that those of you who were hanging out here at Author! Author! throughout last autumn’s ‘Palooza series may well have on hand — brilliant page 1, 1-page synopsis — why not enter?
The prize is honestly pretty fabulous: an in-depth critique of your first page and synopsis by yours truly, right here on the blog. To sweeten the prize, literary fiction phenom Heidi Durrow, author of the Top 10 lister all over the place debut The Girl Who Fell from the Sky, will also be offering feedback.
So get those entries in, everybody. Just in case anyone missed the announcement post, here are those rules again.
The Author! Author! Rings True Writing Competition of 2011
Entries must consist of the first page and a 1-page synopsis (both double-spaced) for a previously unpublished work in English that logically belongs in one of the following book categories:
Category I: Literary fiction
Category II: Memoir
Category III: Fiction that could legitimately fit into several book categories
All entries must be submitted via e-mail to contest@annemini(dot)com by January 10, at 6 p.m in your time zone. Late entries will not be considered.
Entrants may enter more than one category, but please, do not enter the same page in more than one category. (If you’re in serious doubt, enter in Category III.) Please submit each entry in a separate e-mail.
Winners in each category will receive both public praise and feedback on their winning entries from Anne Mini and Heidi Durrow, to be posted on the Author! Author! blog. By entering the Rings True competition, entrants are giving permission for their first pages and synopses to be published on this site.
Because winners will also be awarded life-long bragging rights and coveted professional ECQLC (Eye-Catching Query Letter Candy), the judges reserve the right to award as many (or as few) prizes as the quality of the entry pool warrants. Awards are purely up to the discretion of the judging panel.
Those are the general rules. Here are the specific steps required to win. Do read them all carefully, as I am anticipating close competition this time around.
1. Polish the first page of your manuscript to a high gloss and save it as a Word document.
Submissions should consist of the actual first page of a manuscript as you would submit it to an agent or editor, not simply a page’s worth of writing. The judges want to see the opening of your book in precisely the same format as Millicent the agency screener is likely to read it. That way, our feedback can be useful for your future submissions.Only a single page of text will be accepted. Even if your first page ends mid-sentence, please do not include additional text. However, if you have been vacillating between two different openings, please feel free to enter each as separate entries.
No more than two entries per writer, please. Contest winners will benefit most by submitting recently-written work.
Only .doc entries in Word will be accepted — not TextEdit, PDF, or any other format. Please title the Word file with either your name or the title of your book, not just as contest entry. (The last time I ran a contest like this, I received 37 with that file name.)
2. Make sure that both the page and the synopsis is properly formatted.
All entries must be in standard format for book manuscripts. No exceptions. (And if you are not sure what standard format for a book-length manuscript is, you’re in luck: I’ve been talking about it all month here at Author! Author!, beginning here.Please format your entry page precisely as you would the first page of a submission to an agency or publishing house, including slug line, skipped lines at the top of the page, and any necessary chapter designation. This will enable us to give you the most helpful possible feedback.
3. Please present the first page of your book and your 1-page synopsis as page 1 and 2, respectively, of the Word document.
In other words, please do not send these as two separate documents. Just insert a page break in between.4. On a separate page of the same Word document, write a BRIEF (
In other words, what is fresh about your book? (Hint: this question will be significantly easier to answer if you mention what your book category of choice is.)Please be as specific as you can about what is new and different about your book. Vague claims of being the best novel since WAR AND PEACE probably won’t help your case.
5. On the same page, include your contact information.
Name, address, and e-mail address will suffice. You want us to be able to let you know if you have won, don’t you?6. Make sure to mention which category you are entering.
Again, the three possibilities are:Category I: Literary fiction
Category II: Memoir
Category III: Fiction that could legitimately fit into several book categories
7. Attach the Word document you’ve created to an e-mail.
Please include RINGS TRUE ENTRY in the subject line, and mention the category you’re entering in the body of the e-mail. (It makes it easier to process the entries.) Make sure to say who you are, too, so we don’t get entries mixed up.It’s also a nice touch to say something pleasant (like “Happy New Year, Anne!”) in the e-mail itself. I just mention.
8. E-mail the whole shebang to contest@annemini(dot)com by January 10, 2011, at 6 p.m. in your time
Do I need to explain that the (dot) should be rendered as a period when you are typing the address? Nah, probably not.
And that’s it! Keep up the good work!