As part of our Summer Digital Book Party on June 5th, co-hosted with Byte the Book, we are holding for the third year running our popular TLC Pen Factor Writing Competition, open exclusively to ticket-holders. We’re proud to be able to announce brand new prizes, as well as to clarify our submission guidelines.
Submission Guidelines and TLC Pen Factor
- Full submission guidelines will be issued once you have booked a ticket. The following is a summary of key points
- The competition is for previously unpublished works of full-length fiction/non-fiction (no short stories, poetry or picturebooks)
- We require: your Book Party booking reference number, a synopsis, cover letter addressed ‘Dear Agent’, brief biography, and the opening 2,000 words of your book
- The Competition is open until May 22nd and you can submit by emailing with the subject header ‘TLC Pen Factor’. Please ensure you have followed the submission guidelines before entering
- Four finalists will be selected to present their work to a panel of literary agents at the Book Party and will be given live feedback
- Our panellists this year are Patrick Walsh (Conville & Walsh), Tom Witcomb (Blake Friedmann), Hellie Ogden (Janklow & Nesbit) and editor of Gone Girl Kirsty Dunseath (Orion)
- A full Book Day programme with all the details of the event, including a Nielsen Book Research industry snapshop, and presentations by key book industry speakers representing HarperCollins, Audible, The Pigeonhole, SuperAwesome, Spritz and more, can be found along with booking details here.
Prizes
The 1st place winner will receive prizes worth £1,000 including:
*NEW 2 x Urban Writers’ Retreat one-day retreats: time to write, in a bright studio space, with no distractions. Lunch provided
*NEW One-hour web surgery with The Curved House: a valuable one-on-one surgery to help you strategise your online presence as a writer across platforms
*Byte the Book membership: one year’s free entry to Byte the Book’s popular salon-style events at the Groucho Club
*Byte the Book digital consultancy: strategic, commercially focused support to help you think about your writing within the bigger picture of its target market
*TLC editorial assessment and talent support: honest, professional in-depth critique of your work by an editor, and support from our in-house team and Quality Liaison Officer
*TLC Industry Day with an editor and agent: entry to our twice-yearly Industry Day, held exclusively for Chapter and Verse mentees, including a panel discussion and the opportunity to pitch your work, as well as hear from an editor and agent about the book industry today, and how best to present yourself and your writing when submitting to agents
We will also draw up a TLC website feature to showcase the work of all four finalists, which will be disseminated via our social media pages, and newsletter. The 2014 Pen Factor Showcase featuring Guinevere Glasfurd (1st place), and runners-up L.E. Yates and David Spon-Smith, can be found here.
With special thanks to Charlie Haynes at Urban Writers’ Retreat, and Kristen Harrison at The Curved House, for supporting the 2015 competition.
