Submission Guidelines & Legal Junk

These guidelines must be followed, to the letter. Any entries that do not adhere to these guidelines will not be read or considered for the contest. If you have any questions about the guidelines, visit the Accentuate Writers Forum for more information or to ask questions. Please be sure to read the legal information about the contest rules at the end.

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

1.) All entries must be written in MS Word as a .doc or .RTF format if you do not have Word.

2.) Please use the following standards to submit your entry:

A. 12 pt. font
B. Courier New (Absolutely no fancy fonts or font changes.)
C. 1" margins, all sides
D. Double Spacing, set as double spaced, no line breaks
E. Auto-indent, using the auto-indent feature, not tabs or spaces.
This video will show you how to set auto-indents:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYxdYJdZbao

F. Auto-indent left, unjustified right (ragged right)
G. Do NOT double enter after paragraphs. That's why you indent.
H. Use a centered * * * between scene breaks, if necessary, not a double enter. (Be sure to remove the indent on any centered lines but ONLY on centered lines, otherwise, they won't be centered.)
I. Do NOT tell us 'THE END' - when the words run out, we generally stop reading and assume the story is over, though sometimes, understandably, that might be hard to tell. If it's hard to tell, you might want to consider a revision.

3.) All entries must be emailed to:

contests@accentuateservices.com
If you would like others to view and read your contest entry, opening it to critiques and feedback either before, during or after the contest, you can also UPLOAD it to the critiques thread.

http://accentuatewriters.com/forumdisplay.php?fid=58

The password to access this thread is: password

You must be a registered member of the forum to access this section. Registration and membership is always free. I put it in the password protected thread so that your stories are not indexed in search engines and can only be viewed by registered members and even though they win or are entered in a contest, they won't eliminate you from selling the story to someone else!

Keep in mind that your story MUST BE EMAILED, whether you put it in the upload thread or not. The upload thread is OPTIONAL; emailing is not optional.

Put:
Accentuate Writers Contest: THEME
in the subject of the email.

4.) You have until the last day of each month, at 11:59pm Central Time to send your submission to Michy.

5.) There is no entry and no limit on the number of short stories you can enter, but be sure to send professional work that is as close to publish ready as possible. Include your email address, pen name and the theme for which you are submitting so you can be assigned a proper entry number for your contest entry.

6.) After your entry is received, you will be emailed an ENTRY NUMBER on or before the close of the contest. This entry number is what will confirm receipt of your submission and will identify it to the judges, so judging is completely blind.

ENTRY GUIDELINES:

1.) Follow the submission guidelines to create your short story submission.

2.) DO NOT put your name on your entry. Instead, put your pen name, THEME and Story Title in the body of the email.

3.) Entries must be between 1500 - 10,000 words, give or take a few hundred either way, as long the entry tells a full story with an intriguing storyline. If your entry is outside of these limits, you'd better have a darned good story to tell and email Michy first before you submit it.

4.) Use proper grammar, spelling and style when writing the story that complements the story - sometimes, grammar does take a backseat to the story, but you'd better know why it does if you're gonna break the rules! (yes, the gonna was intentional)

The most common mistakes are: not checking spelling (can you imagine not using spell check at the very least?), dialogue tags and proper punctuation of dialogue, using all caps or multiple punctuation marks at the end of sentences!!!! ?! I see a lot of ALL CAPS used for emphasis. Good writers can make sure the reader sees emphasis without using all caps, but if you must show emphasis, use italics.

THEME: 5.) All entries must use the theme.

To see the themes, go to this link:
http://www.accentuateservices.com/AS/node/15
We're not telling you what the theme means or how to use it, so don't ask. Part of what your entry is going to be judged upon is the adherence to and creative use of the theme. The more creative it is, the better chance you have of winning. The theme doesn't have to be 'in-your-face'. In fact, it's probably better if it's not. It can be subtle, but be sure that it's not so subtle that the judges can't clearly see you used the theme.

6.) DO NOT use headers or footers, and DO NOT number your pages.

7.) Only ONE space after the periods.

8.) Oh, did I mention to: Give us your best work!

LEGAL STUFF

YOU will retain ALL copyrights to your short story, but if you win and then choose to accept the publishing contract and include your winning short story in the Accentuate Writers anthology, we do ask for non-exclusive, first print publication rights, North American - and we might negotiate electronic rights at a later date. We also license rights through royalty contract to use your name, titles, snippets of your story and other things for promoting the story and anthology, but those terms are spelled out in your author's contract, should you win and choose to accept it.

Writers who win the contest will receive an author's contract for each winning submission once the quarterly contest ends, but it might take up to two additional quarters prior to receiving the royalty contract and paperwork. Included with the contract will be the amount of the prize, but the prize is an award, NOT an advance on the royalties. The percentage of royalties assigned for your part of the anthology based on the final edited version of the winning story. Once the writer reviews and agrees to the contract, returns it signed, we will release the payment for the prize to the writer--this is payment upon publication, but it's likely you will be paid a little before publication unless there are technical problems delaying until close to publication.

Prize winners will be notified via email and/or on the Accentuate Writers Forum threads and Michy's blog.

After the story publishes in the print anthology trade paperback book and winners have received their free copies they won in the contest, all winners will be allowed to buy additional books at a discount off the retail price between 35-50% off the suggested retail price. The discount will differ with each anthology and is determined in advance and is part of the author's contract. NO PURCHASE IS EVER NECESSARY. You will not be required, coerced or expected to purchase any copies of the anthologies in which your story appears, ever. If you choose to purchase copies, you can do so at the discounted price, either for resale, giveaways (though we do offer some giveaways for publicity for free to the authors at our discretion.)

Details and an author's packet will go out to the winning writers before the anthology goes to print.

THERE IS NO PURCHASE REQUIRED, PERIOD, EVER--not to enter, not to win!

YOU WILL NOT BE ASKED TO PAY FOR EDITING OR CRITIQUE SERVICES.

Editing is part of publishing, so all stories that win the contest will be fully edited for free by an experienced, professional print book editor who has worked with multiple small and mid-sized publishing houses.

THERE ARE NO OUT OF POCKET REQUIRED COSTS TO THE AUTHOR, NOT TO ENTER, NOT TO WIN, NOT EVEN TO GET A COPY OF THE BOOK -- ALL AUTHORS RECEIVE COPIES OF THE BOOK IN WHICH THEY APPEAR!

Some Notes:

Contests will be held monthly throughout 2010, with a print anthology compiled at the end of each quarter, resulting in four print anthologies per year. However, the print anthologies are delayed, so it might take up to a year for some anthologies to go to print. The publishing schedule is published as far in advance as possible on the Accentuate Services website (here). Accentuate plans to host these contests monthly, and close quarterly for four print anthologies per year--we will never increase that number, since running these contests and preparing the anthologies is time consuming and expensive, and we also want to keep the competitive nature where being published in one of our anthologies is a true competitive honor, limited only to the best of the best of each contest.

We do, however, reserve the right to reduce the number we do each year, if enough entries are not received to make four full-sized trade standard books. If the number of anthologies is reduced, we will merge themes and ensure all authors are published in one of our anthologies for that year, or else the author can choose to opt out of the anthology.

FINE PRINT:

Because unlimited submissions are allowed, it is possible for one author to place/win in the same contest more than once, especially since judging is blind. Additionally, three contests make up one anthology, so it's not unusually for one author to have more than one story accepted for publication. However, in order to ensure the anthology stays a multi-author book, no single author will have more than FOUR stories in one book. After the fourth winning story, they will be ineligible for future contests until the next anthology compilation begins.

Only first-place winners are guaranteed to have their names on the front cover of the book. We will make every effort to include all winners on the cover, but make no promises we will do so anyone other than first place winners, so we can keep our options for cover design flexible for our designers.

All authors will be listed on the interior title page, the LOC page, and will have author bios included in the back of the book, with photo and contact information if they so choose. All author's pen names will be listed in the description field on Amazon.com and other online book retailers, and will be included as an Amazon.com author on the book, which will allow them to create Amazon Author Central pages.

Any contest discussion should be held in this thread the writers forum:
http://accentuatewriters.com/forumdisplay.php?fid=81

If you have any questions, post them in that section, so all authors can benefit from the answer. Several authors have also suggested things to help improve the contest. We are open to suggestions. While we can't implement all suggestions, we do listen to the authors!

For prize information:
CLICK HERE FOR PRIZES
Any questions? Better to ask than be disqualified!
Good luck!

small print
For legal and functioning purposes, we reserve the right to change these rules, guidelines and submissions at any time. We will, however, do our best to make sure you are notified by posting in the Announcements section of the AWF board and updating the terms here.