Annual Worldwide writing competition for unagented writers offering every entrant feedback. Adult prize opens Jan to May & CNPKids prize October to January
It's so strange and sad to find Twitter (X) so quiet - like an abandoned station. This platform has always been our preferred route to reach out to our entrants - is there anyone still out there or have you all gone?
It’s Friday. Here
@prize_novel
we think Fridays should be called
#giveawayfriday
so each week we will give you all chance to win some goodies. Follow us, retweet and tag a friend using
#cheshirenovelprize
closes midnight 12th January
From 1640 entries, congratulations to our 33 LL writers. For these guys the journey now begins. Please do stick around to follow them on their journey. Thank you to everyone who entered. The talent was off the scale this year.
We’ve had so many emails and comments about not stopping the prize and an amazing couple of offers of help. So bear with us and after we close this year’s entries we will reflect again! It’s nice to feel wanted!
We are so delighted to announce our 2024 shortlist - congratulations to all our LL and shortlisted writers and to everyone who entered . This was a very tough call with so much talent. And thank you also to our wonderful judges!
We are so delighted to announce that the winner of
@prize_novel
‘23
@LouiseWeebe
is now represented by one of our wonderful ‘24 judges
@katiefulf
from
@BLM_Agency
we could not be happier! We cannot wait to see your books out in the world!
🧵Main reasons why books don’t pass our rounds : takes too long to get going. We don’t care enough about the characters. Too much backstory. No clear hook or inciting incident. Pace is slow. Structure is confusing. Dialogue sounds unauthentic and doesn’t move the story on.
Well it’s a wrap and our competition Is now closed. Thank you to all who entered; we will take good care of your words. Don’t go anywhere because
@prize_novel
live instagrams and writing tips will continue from Monday plus lots of brilliant
#Cheshirenovelprizesnippets
✂️✂️✂️ as
Of 300 novels in contention & 250 left to read we decide Top 100, read again for LL when our judges get involved. We can't tell you how hard readers work & are beyond grateful. Readers reveal after LL. Thanks to everyone who entered - our job hasn't been easy - so much talent.
Good update on our reading. Our amazing readers have read 1750 entries & we only have 250 to read. We currently have 300 novels in contention for top 100 and these will be decided by 25th June. We will then whittle these down to our LL by 1st July 2024.
Lovely excitement for✂️✂️✂️
#cheshirenovelprizesnippets
. We’re still longlisting & will ✂️✂️✂️ date at the end of this week .
#Cheshirenovelprizesnippets
are books who reached top 100 from 1900 entries - we don’t publish a list but we tell you in your feedback if successful 🤞
Why wouldn't you enter your 5000 words and synopsis? We are the ONLY prize that offers feedback to EVERY entry at NO extra cost. We accept all genres including memoir and fictional memoir and YA and we have FIVE amazing judges. How many days do you have left?
Sorry we are a bit late! This weeks
#FridayGiveaway
#cheshirenovelprize
please follow us, retweet and tag a friend. Closes midnight 20th January. Open Internationally
Hi 👋 we’re back on Monday! So watch this space for prize info and tips and hints and instagrams! Plus ✂️✂️✂️
#cheshirenovelprizesnippets
coming soon! You thought we’d forgotten you? 🤫
We are trailblazing the way ahead for writing competitions for the future
@prize_novel
& good to see other competitions now starting to offer additional resources for writers entering without charging for them! Writing competitions SHOULD be a platform for new writers to SHINE!
We are so grateful to each and every one of you who has entered this year and for trusting us with your words. We will take good care of them, The entries are flying in with only a few more hours to go til we close. Thank you
It’s time!!! Coming tomorrow!! First 2024 ✂️✂️✂️
#Cheshirenovelprizesnippets
see you at 2pm on X with the first 20! These are our top 100 for 2024! Please note we only post these on X - so excited ! Are you?
Our 2024 adult prize is closed! We will go quiet for a few days whilst we check entries. Thank you to everyone who entered, to everyone who has supported us & to you for supporting each other . Our LL announced 14th June at 2pm UK time 💚
#cheshirenovelprizesnippetsLL
✂️✂️✂️ For those of you doing your sums correctly , we had 3 writers withdraw from the LL due to being newly signed by agents. It shows our readers have good taste! We wish ‘10 Marchfield Square’, ‘Paper Women’ and ‘Idjomeneja The Death Mask’ every
Writing is a long road. It’s a learning curve. It’s a craft to be crafted. All writers have to face rejection but those that succeed keep going and keep learning. And for those that put their work out there it’s a big deal. Congratulations to all of you who did. Agents are
We will publish all the stats and entry numbers soon. We are very transparent but we are just checking all the entries currently so we will be AWOL for a week!
Massive congratulations to our 9 shortlisted writers below. Our winner will be announced on the 1st June 2024. Also another massive congratulations to all of our 28 LL writers - the talent was immense! Thank you so much for entering.
Good update on our reading. Our amazing readers have read 1750 entries & we only have 250 to read. We currently have 300 novels in contention for top 100 and these will be decided by 25th June. We will then whittle these down to our LL by 1st July 2024.
We are so excited to be open to entries. And don’t forget, this year we are accepting Memoir in addition to all other genres except children’s. We are looking forward to reading your work. Have a wonderful day! Happy new year.
A massive good luck cheer to our amazing 2023 shortlisted writers: Louise Jensen, Alison Wray, Emma Cowing, Caitlin Breeze, Christina Loi , Elle Wild, Paul Sharp, Lucy Waverley, Dave Shoesmith and Jo Morey. We wish you could all win!
Thank you to everyone who entered
#cheshirenovelprizekids
and a huge congratulations to our 28 longlisted writers. Good luck on the rest of the journey. Feedback will go out 30th June latest to ALL entrants. 💚💚💖
Well good morning! This morning we thought we would share with you our reader ‘Yes’ form for round one only. This afternoon we will share the ‘No’ form for round one only. There are 3 rounds before judges. We have also shared our reader checklist for yes. Have a wonderful day.
#Cheshirenovelprize2024snippets
✂️✂️✂️
#CNPTOP100
use the # above to find snippets. Please remember if you recognise your work, say you’ve seen it but please don’t identify it; judging process must remain anonymous. Also ask your writing tribe to 🤐 too 😂 see you in a bit 🤞
From 1640 outstanding entries, tomorrow at 2pm we announce our 2023 shortlist! These 30 LL writers have gone through 4 rounds of reading plus have been read by our judges. All our LL writers are so talented and such a lovely bunch of writers. We wish them every success for
Massive congratulations to
@MaggieRobb2
for winning
#CNPKids2024
with her amazing book Supers. And to Hayley King for being awarded Highly Commended for Astrid &the Book Zombies.
We thought we’d spoil you and announce our winner of
#CNPKids
slightly earlier than 2pm today. So drum roll please … and many congratulations to all of our shortlisted and long-listed writers and a huge thank you to EVERYONE who entered
#CNPKids2024
We couldn’t be more delighted for last years winner
@LouiseWeebe
- not only did one of our judges
@katiefulf
sign her but she now has a book deal! Congratulations Louise! Next year thete will have 8 books out from last year’s prize winners.
Our submissions are read at least 3 x We don’t believe it’s fair to decide on 1 read through. That’s why we are different to other competitions. We want to give writers the best chance of progressing. If you get to LLL, your novel will have been read 12 times, LL,15 and SL 24.
Thank you to everyone who entered. The standard was so high this year. Good luck to everyone who entered. Feedback goes out from 2nd August to 30th November.
Well all our 1640 feedbacks have now gone out! So if you haven’t got your feedback please check your junk and spam. If you still don’t have it all feedback has been completed so email us entry
@cheshirenovelprize
.com with the name of your novel.
#CNP2023
is officially closed
Loads of messages( & the prize is not closed until winner announced on 1st August …. But yes we will be reopening 1st Jan 2023 with all the extras: instagrams, giveaways etc. And fabulous judges lined up! We’ve learned loads and this was a pilot but we think it has 🦿🦵🦵
We are half way through reading for our long long list and already novels have flown through to later rounds. There is so much talent out there. We will be back next week with news of all of our free resources and instagram lives for May/June plus news about
Please retweet: You have under 3 weeks to enter the prize that gives EVERYONE feedback, and we have an unusually high rate for agent uptake and we care. We are a commercially focussed prize with FIVE industry judges. Do enter now. Here's all the details:
At one point right in the midst of this we were like, “never again” but it’s brought us so much joy and hopefully you all too, so we will be back! Thank you
@thebookseller
for all of your support
We are delighted that one of our
@prize_novel
2023 shortlisted writers has now secured an amazing publishing deal - congratulations
@emmacowing
we couldn’t be happier
For anyone feeling 😢 there is still 20 ✂️✂️left for tomorrow and we can’t LL
Everyone and top 💯 BUT you’re all getting feedback on your work and a CNP editor is going to spend near 20 mins focussing on only your work to help you improve.
We like to be transparent
@prize_novel
so we always share our readers ‘Yes’ & ‘No’ checklists. So today is our ‘yes’, meaning this is the criteria our 3 readers per round for each book use to say yes to progressing your entry to the next round. We will be back tomorrow with ‘No.’
We have got one pre-launch copy of
@LouiseWriter
’s haunting & beautiful book
#NothingElse
kindly donated by
@OrendaBooks
This book is breathtaking . Follow & retweet. Closes 28th March 2022.
We are delighted to say that one of our LL now SL writers has received representation - congratulations
@clairelwilliam
As long as writers aren’t represented at the point of being LL they can remain in the competition - it is only if the book is sold to a publisher they can’t
No need to email us. We are sorry if there are a few spelling mistakes in your feedback. We’ve done 1300 mainly between 3 of us since April and it is a full time job. 💖 you can practice your editing skills by identifying them and correcting them. We are very sorry but …
We thought we’d spoil you and announce our winner of
#CNPKids
slightly earlier than 2pm today. So drum roll please … and many congratulations to all of our shortlisted and long-listed writers and a huge thank you to EVERYONE who entered
#CNPKids2024
We have now read 3/4 of our submissions and have the start of our long long list which is really exciting. Our LLL means those writers will automatically participate in our agent showcase. We will finish reading by next week and move on to the next rounds. Our readers are
Well what a great day for submissions. A nice mixture of book club, literary fiction, YA, romance and crime. The panel are certainly going to be busy. See you tomorrow!
We could not have done any of this without our wonderful readers and tomorrow we will introduce you to them. But for now from the bottom of our
@prize_novel
💖 you all rock!
Ok guys here we go! Good luck to everyone who entered, please do keep writing. Also please join in congratulating our wonderful 30 LL
Writers who made it past 1900 entries. Please stay to follow their journey.
#Cheshirenovelprizefirstlines
coming August + instagram lives
This competition is thorough. Your work is read at LEAST 3 times in round one and 4 times with an editor to make it not subjective by only 1 person reading it. Our readers are genre specific so they know what they like and know the genre. Our editors who do your feedback are all
We love that our CNP’ers post they’ve entered. Such a family feel! Here’s a picture of the Cheshire countryside and bluebells minus rain ☀️☀️🌞⛅️to say thank you all for entering so far!
Can we just say over the last 2 weeks we have received the most amazing emails & messages about the feedback. We do appreciate these! 200 to go! Thanks for your patience.
It is today!
@2pm
! ✂️✂️✂️✂️ from our LLL which will ultimately be our LL. 10
#cheshirenovelprizesnippets
each day until Friday and again from Tuesday until Monday 15th May. Every day
@2pm
- come on over
Last year 4 of our shortlisted writers secured agents through the prize - not to mention many additional writers who were LL or LLL or just edited from our feedback and secured an agent. We are so excited this year to see the success of our writers and entrants no matter the
We’ve started reading!! There is some massive talent out there! We have 40 readers ranging from 18 years old to 78 across a wide range of demographics, plus our amazing judges. All manuscripts will be read at least 3 times. And you’re all getting at least a page of feedback!
The good news is we will continue to offer summer school and writing courses and editing courses at a 10% cost after 2024 so don't go anywhere. We will also continue on with our free instagrams and interviews. So sit tight.
Thank you to everyone for your lovely emails thanking us for your feedback. Unfortunately there are so many we can’t reply individually. We started this prize to give EVERY writer feedback because not knowing why you were not LL and having your work go into the ether if not a
The Ukraine 🇺🇦 situation has been on our minds
@prize_novel
so in addition to our 10% donation to charity we will be giving £5 from every entrant in March to the Ukraine appeal.
To all of you who are saying thank you for your feedback we are so grateful - it’s a huge job, but to do it right it takes time and your thank you’s keep us going! And to all of you patiently still waiting we only have about 1/3 left to do & will meet our august 30 deadline 🎉🥳
#Cheshirenovelprize2024snippets
✂️✂️✂️
#CNPTOP100
we have been asked how we write the ✂️✂️
@saranaidinecox
writes each one of the 💯individually from reading excerpt & synopses. She does it to show pitches & the need to provide a succinct summary. We hope you enjoy them .
Just a bit of information. The adult prize feedback doesn’t start to go out until 2nd August. We have to collate the feedback from 1900 entries and write each one individually - so please try to bear with us. End date for feedback is 31st October
For our long long listed writers we set up a private chat group via our private app so you can all link up. And a different group for our longlisted and shortlisted writers. Last years longlistees and shortlistees are all still in touch and supporting each other a year later.
We will be highlighting the
@prize_novel
team after the long list but to my team - you are the best. Hours of reading and discussing and voting for favourites! I couldn’t do this without you all- Thank you from the bottom of my ❤️
#makingdreamscometrue
Sara xx
Good morning! We are reading furiously. We will be posting more events this week so keep an eye on the Twitter & instagram. Thank you to everyone who entered and for trusting us with your words. We will take good care of them. Please make sure you add entry
@cheshirenovelprize
to
We cannot believe that we will be in our 3rd year of our adult prize on 1st January 2024 when we open again for entries. Out of our shortlisted cohort over the last 2 years, 11 of our shortlisted writers have now secured agents as a result of entering the prize and so many
For those asking about feedback. The feedback is being done. Latest date for you to receive feedback is 30th June so a long way to go yet! We have 998 to do and a small team. Please bear with us. We have 400 still to go. We will get through it.
Kind regards,
Sara
For all of you who are waiting patiently for feedback and not emailing us asking why you haven’t had it - you are all angels sent from heaven 😂 feedback will get to everyone by 30th …
It’s time!!! Coming tomorrow!! First 2024 ✂️✂️✂️
#Cheshirenovelprizesnippets
see you at 2pm on X with the first 20! These are our top 100 for 2024! Please note we only post these on X - so excited ! Are you?
We are so exited for another one of our 2023 shortlisted writers to have secured representation from a literary agent following the prize. Congratulations
@caitlin_breeze
we can’t wait to see your book out in the world!
I am so excited to announce that my writings (and I) are now represented by Nicole Cunningham at The Book Group! She is the most brilliant of literary agents, and I cannot wait to work with her on bringing my novels into the world.