The Bath Children’s Novel Award 2016

I have a couple of reservations about this competition so buyer beware. Why must the entrant be unagented? Does Cornerstones agency then hope charge lots of fees to all entrants to edit their manuscripts?

Deadline: 20th November 2016

The Bath Children’s Novel Award 2016 is open for submissions, with entries invited from children’s novelists of any nationality and perspective. We’re looking for all genres of chapter, middle grade and young adult novels – from funny to dark, fashionable to forever, fantastic to futuristic.

Judge: Julia Churchill (Literary agent at AM Heath)

Prize: £2,000 with an additional shortlistee prize of £500 vouchers from Cornerstones Literary Consultancy.

Submissions: 3,000 words plus a one page synopsis

Fee: £22 per novel

The Bath Children’s Novel Award 2016 Rules:

The Bath Children’s Novel Award is a competition for unpublished and independently published writers. Entrants should not have accepted a traditional publication offer for a novel. For the purposes of the competition, a ‘traditional publication offer’ is defined as an offer to publish a novel with advance payment.

Novels should be for children who are able to read for themselves, or young adults. Picture books and graphic novels are not eligible.

Entrants must be unagented.

Submissions should include (up to) the first 3,000 words of your novel plus a one page synopsis. Your novel extract should be double-spaced in a size 12 font and include the title. Your synopsis should be single-spaced in a size 12 font. As entries are read ‘blind’, please do NOT include your name anywhere on the extract and synopsis document.

In your email (or covering page for postal entrants), state your name, address, telephone number, novel title, genre, extract and approximate full manuscript word count, plus your method of entry fee payment.

Longlisted entrants will be announced early December 2016 and asked to submit their full manuscript for the final judging stages. Shortlisted entrants will be announced in December 2016.

The winner of The Bath Children’s Novel Award will be announced in January 2017 and receive £2,000 plus a Minerva trophy, designed by Jessica Palmer.

One shortlisted writer will receive £500 in vouchers from Cornerstones Literary Consultancy which may be used towards any editorial report or mentoring hours in either Cornerstones’ US or UK house. There is no cash alternative to this prize.

There are no full manuscript word count restrictions, however as a guide, we recommend 6-10,000 for a chapter book, 40-60,000 for middle grade and 50-70,000 words for YA (or longer for fantasy novels).

Novels must be your original work and in English.

Entries are open to writers aged 16 years and over of any nationality and based in any country.

Entrants retain full copyright of their submissions, however by entering, all entrants give The Bath Novel Award permission to post the first 3,000 words of any shortlisted entries on our site.

Check out the website for more info: https://bathnovelaward.co.uk/childrens-novel-award/