Opportunities for writers to gain recognition prior to publication abound in the form of awards and competitions. Being selected for an award provides an endorsement that carries value when approaching agents about representation of the book.

Unpublished writers should investigate organizations in their genre and geographic area for possible competitions. This post provides some opportunities I will be pursuing in 2020.

Author Mentor Match

Author Mentor Match (AMM) pairs unpublished authors with published or about-to-be-published authors as mentors. The window for submitting an entry is February 13 through February 16, 2020. There is no fee to enter. Author mentor selections will be announced by March 3, 2020.

The online submission requires electronic copies of a query letter, a 1-2 page synopsis, and the first 50 pages of a completed novel. The author may select up to four potential mentors from a list of mentors. Mentors are divided by Middle Grade (MG), Young Adult (YA), and Adult. Mentors decide which unpublished author they wish to coach. The mentor will review the author’s manuscript and provide big picture critiques and advice on next steps.

SCBWI Awards

The Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI) offers a number of award opportunities for members. There is no fee to enter. However, SCBWI membership is required. I previously did a post on SCBWI and on their Works-in-Progress (WIP) Award. So, I won’t go into much detail here.

Submissions are due February 17 through March 20, 2020, for the A. Orr Fantasy Grant, with a decision in May 2020. Entries for the WIP Award and the Late Bloomer Award are open from March 1 through March 31, 2020, with a decision in September 2020.

Entries for all these SCBWI Awards require a 250-word synopsis and the first 10 pages of the novel. Submissions are made electronically. The recognition varies with the particular award.

Royal Palm Literary Award

The Royal Palm Literary Award is an annual opportunity offered by the Florida Writers Association (FWA). This is a major effort and includes a 25-page manual with guidelines for submissions. The full manuscript must be submitted along with a synopsis of 300-500 words, and a 30-word summary of the novel. In addition, an author bio and photograph must be furnished.

Submissions started on February 1, 2002 and will continue through April 30, 2020. The fee for each entry increases later in the submission period. After a two step review process, the Gold, Silver and Bronze awards will be announced on October 17, 2020, at the annual conference banquet.

My Plan

I plan to submit Rust Boy and the Brass Ring for all these opportunities. I’m editing the manuscript based on feedback from the Tampa Writers Alliance Critique Group on Chapters 1 and 2. This group will critique Chapters 3-5 on February 12.

Meanwhile, the East Hernando Writers Group critiqued my query letter (as required by AMM), and a 250-word synopsis (as required by SCBWI). I still need to write two more versions of the synopsis: a 1-2 page version and a 300-500 word version.

Finally, I created a spreadsheet to track all the requirements of these different opportunities. Formatting changes from one award to the next. For instance, file naming is specific to each entry. One group wants the page number in the bottom corner versus the top. One organization wants the author’s name on each page. In contrast, another group doesn’t want a name shown.

Goal

My goal is to have the entire novel polished and ready to go for the AMM submission, which has the tightest window for entries. After that, the manuscript will not be revised again until all the entries are done. It’s going to be a busy month full of opportunities for writers!