The #ShoreIndie Contest supports emerging indie authors' success by removing barriers to producing and publishing quality books and by providing resources for the further development of skills and knowledge needed for a successful indie author career. In Round 1, 10 authors will be chosen to work with a ShoreIndie editor for 7 weeks. In Round 2, the Round 1 winners' manuscripts will go on to the ShoreIndie Judges to compete for the Grand Prize and Runner Up prize packages.
Submissions open: 9am Eastern on Saturday, June 3, 2017
Submissions close: 9am Eastern on Monday, June 5, 2017
Submission method: Submittable
Who can enter
Our mission is to support emerging indie authors, whom we define as authors who are serious about supplementing their incomes by self-publishing and marketing high-quality books, who have published 0-3 books, and who are grossing less than $500 annually from combined sales of their books. In our first year, we are accepting completed young adult (YA), new adult (NA), and adult (A) novel(la)s written in English. Because we will be using Twitter for chats and announcements, you must have a Twitter account.
In addition, if you are selected to participate in the Editing Round, you must be able to devote a significant amount of time to revision - think 40-60 hours over the seven weeks - and be willing to have both the original and edited versions of your book blurb and first five pages published on the ShoreIndie blog.
To avoid potential conflicts of interest, ShoreIndie Judges, Editors, Sponsors, and Featured Authors are not eligible to submit.
Please note: The ShoreIndie team is committed to providing a fun and safe space for authors to learn about/discuss writing, book marketing, and indie authorship. To that end, anyone who engages in any form of verbal abuse, hate speech, bullying, or harassment toward any member of the ShoreIndie community (including but not limited to authors participating in discussions on the #ShoreIndie hashtag, contest entrants, sponsors, featured authors, editors, and judges) will be disqualified from the contest and its related giveaways. If a member of the ShoreIndie community verbally abuses, directs hate speech at, bullies, or harasses you, please bring it to the attention of the organizer, @writelearndream, or any other member of the editing team so that we can take appropriate action. Thank you for helping us create a fun and welcoming learning community!
Submission guidelines
You will submit your back-of-the-book blurb and first five pages (up to 1500 words) to up to three editors.* We encourage you to watch the recording of the ShoreIndie webinar, How to Refine Your Novel's Blurb and First Five Pages, hosted by Reedsy, for great tips that will give your submission package an edge in the contest.
Pages should be in 12pt Times New Roman (or a similar, easy-to-read font), double-spaced, and submitted as a .doc. Up to 2 submissions per person are allowed.
In addition, please have your brief answers to the following questions ready:
- Tell us a little about why you're passionate about the book you're submitting to ShoreIndie.
- Why did you decide to self-publish this book?
- What are the biggest barriers to or challenges around self-publishing/indie authorship for you?
*Each editor can only receive 100 submissions, so we encourage you to submit early in the submission period to ensure you get your first choices. In addition to asking you to choose 3 editors to submit to, we will ask you to select an alternate editor in case your top 3 choices are already capped when your submission is processed.
There is no submission fee to enter this contest.
Entrants will have the option of donating $5 or $10 to the contest. Everyone who donates will be entered into a raffle to win a free blurb critique from one of the ShoreIndie editors. ($5 donation = 1 entry. $10 donation = 2 entries.) The 10 raffle winners will be drawn and announced after the Author-Editor pairs are announced on Sunday, June 11th. Donations will be used to cover contest expenses, and any surplus proceeds will be donated to Books for Africa.
Please direct questions to @ShoreIndie or shoreindiecontest (at) gmail (dot) com.
