A few months ago RWA’s blog carried news of a UK competition called Search for an Australian star. http://www.choc-lit.co.uk/html/search_for_an_australian_star.html
At the time I thought it sounded like a good opportunity for me and the competition deadlines also suited the goals I’d set myself for finishing His Brand Of Beautiful (end of August).
I needed to review my synopsis anyway but this was the main reason I’ve been trying to get that sorted out too, as in order to submit to the UK competition, you had to first send a synopsis.
Well, yesterday I heard back from the publisher (I thought it was commendable to hear back from anyone in the UK this week before the Olympics) and they said they were interested in reading more about my story and invited me to subscript the full manuscript with a form (which by the way included a question for me to describe my hero in terms of chocolate!!) Ye Gods. Sounds like another post.
However, at the very least, I think this must mean my synopsis is a reasonable summation of the story and characters. So I’m taking that as good news.
What I’m now not sure of is just what happens with entering the competition. Winners are announced in December (or winner singular most probably). But to enter the competition you cannot have your book with an agent and I’m keen to query it as I’ve said in recent posts. In the gamut of emotion between staying positive and not getting your hopes up, it’s hard to know whether the best thing for me and the book is to get locked in to a competition whereby you may lose opportunity to query the book with either other publishers, or other agents.
I’ll have to think about it. I can’t seem to find much information that tells me any terms and conditions they have, should you actually be lucky enough to win their competition. What happens next?
Lily Malone - Author 