- The Bath Novel Award 2020 is a prize for emerging novelists of any nationality or residency
- Novels can be in any genre written for adult or young adult readers
- Novels must be your original work and submitted in English
- Novels can be unpublished, self-published or independently published
- For the purposes of the competition, we define ‘self-published or independently published’ as published without an advance payment.
- Writers who have accepted an offer of publication with advance for the submitted novel or any other novel are not eligible
- Entrants may be agented or unagented, but should not be represented by either the judging agent or any agent within the judging agent’s agency
- The winner of The Bath Novel Award 2020 will be announced in September 2020 and awarded £3,000
- Entrants retain full copyright, however by entering, all shortlisted entrants give permission for us to post an extract of up to 5,000 words on our site
- By entering the winner agrees to an interview which may be published on our site and in any media for publicity purposes
- The longlist will be announced at www.bathnovelaward.co.uk on June 25th 2020 with longlisted writers invited to submit their full manuscript no later than June 30th 2020 for the final judging stages
- The writer of the most promising longlisted novel, as chosen by the Bath Novel Award and Cornerstones Literary Consultancy will receive a free place on Cornerstones’ 18 week online course Edit Your Novel the Professional Way. The value of this prize is £1,800. The course is non-transferable and there is no cash alternative to this prize.
- Shortlisted novels will be announced July 31st 2020
- Unrepresented shortlisted writers will be offered the opportunity to be introduced to an individually tailored list of literary agents by email or other means.
- Entries are open from December 2nd 2019 until 23:59 (BST) on May 31st 2020
- As entries are read blind, your name should not appear anywhere in your extract/synopsis document
- Submissions should be a single document which includes include (up to) the first 5,000 words of a novel of at least 50,000 words.
- Submissions should be 1.5 or double-spaced in a 12pt font followed by a one page synopsis single spaced in a 12pt font.
- Your full novel should be at least 50,000 words in length
- If submitting your work online, we accept Word docs, docx and pdf
- If submitting by post, entries should be postmarked no later than 31st May 2020
- Submissions may not be altered after entry
- The entrance fee is £28 per novel and you may enter as many novels as you wish
- Sponsored places are available for writers on low incomes, more details here
- Entries which do not comply with the competition rules may be disqualified
- Employees of the Bath Novel Award, Cornerstones Literary Consultancy and the judge’s agency are not eligible
