The Mail and publisher Little, Brown have launched a search for the UK’s brightest literary talent. The contest is for first-time authors aged 18 or over, resident in the United Kingdom who have not had any work of fiction published before.
The winner will have their book published by Little, Brown’s Sphere imprint which boasts authors such as Robert Galbraith, Val McDermid, Jenny Colgan and Clare Mackintosh. They will also get a £20,000 advance and be taken on by top literary agency LBA.
Your entry must be written for an adult audience, can be in any genre except Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror and can be contemporary, historical, funny or tragic, dark or delightful, so long as it has an original voice, compelling characters and a driven plot.
It doesn’t need to be complete — just send 3,000 words, plus a 600-word synopsis (including spoilers) written in the English language to show where you plan to take your plot and characters.
Find out more here
Read the terms and conditions here
Deadline: 17:30pm (GMT/BST) on November 1, 2022