New Writers Awards Rules 2020 [Closed]

How to enter + Rules

WE ARE CURRENTLY LOOKING FOR JUDGES. PLEASE MESSAGE US IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO PARTICIPATE IN JUDGING. 

What we do

We all know what it feels like to be a struggling author on Wattpad. barely scraping the reads, votes and comments we need, want and deserve. These awards aim to uplift the writers that have either just started out or have been going a while but have yet to reach the broader Wattpad community.

How to enter 

First a little about the selection process; A panel of judges will read each story and decide which deserves a shout out and a pretty banner to wear proudly on their covers. There will be monthly winners for particular categories and each year there will be an overall winner under each category. 

Categories:

Yearly:
Action
Adventure
Comedy
Fan-fiction
Fantasy
General Fiction
Horror
Mystery/Thriller
Poetry
Romance
Science Fiction
Short Story
Teen Fiction

As of May 2020, we will no longer be judging erotica (smut): This does not mean if you have a sexy time scene at some point in the book because its a fanfiction or a romance means you can't enter it. We mean stories that are mostly erotica or are of a very sexual nature. If you are unsure please message us and ask if your story is eligible. If you would like to know the reasoning behind this please see our FAQ chapter. 

Monthly:
Check the monthly Chapter

How to submit your stories:

There are two ways to enter these awards. 
1. Use the hashtag #NewWriterAwards and fill out an entry form
2. Get nominated by your devoted readers (readers do not have to fill out an entry form, they simply have to say 'I nominate book title by author) 

If you enter with the hashtag then please complete an Entry form on the next page.
If you are nominated by one of your readers then we will contact you once we get the nomination and message you to get all the details of your entry. 

Rules

1. Your story may not over 500K reads overall. The purpose of these awards is to highlight new writers. If you have over 500K reads you are considered an established writer. For monthly entries this include having a total sum of over 500K reads, that means if you have multiple books all with a substantial amount of read and the sum of all those reads is over 500K you are not eligible to enter into a monthly category.

2. If you win a monthly competition: You may not enter a monthly competition for the next 3 consecutive months

3. If you are a yearly category winner: You have to wait for 1 year without entrant before you can enter into the yearly category again. 

4. If you are the overall yearly winner: You have to wait 2 consecutive years before you can enter into the yearly category again. 

5. You may not enter if you are a paid writer or a Wattpad star. 

6. You may only enter 1 story in a category in the yearly draw and 3 stories overall. Your 3 stories overall may not have more than 1M reads. 

7. You may only enter 1 story into the monthly category each month. You cannot enter more than one story each month. This is purely due to the volume of submissions we receive and our limited number of judges, if each writer could enter more than one story we would struggle to give fair judging to all writers. 

8. We are looking for originality, thus a winner does not have to be picked. 

9. Please do not spam us with entries in the comments or nominations. If you comment you entry form more than once we will delete repeated entries. This does not increase your chances of winning and if we see you doing this continually we will not let you compete for that month. Moreover please don't put your readers up to nominate you for the awards, nominations do not increase your chances of winning, we simply allow nominations in order for readers to assist in helping new writers get discovered as writers can be shy and feel uncomfortable nominating themselves. 

10. We remain the right to revoke your award if we find that you do not fit the criteria or lied at any point during the process. This means if you have another Wattpad account where we would consider you an established writer, this means you are an established writer. The purpose of this awards is to uplift writers who haven't gotten the recognition they deserve so if you are an established writer and are writing under a new account that hasn't taken off yet and you win the award then you are taking the opportunity from another writer which is not fair. 

11.  The winner will not be chosen by most votes, this is because we work on a point system. If you would like to know more about the system then please see the judging chapter.

12. You may not spam our message box with entries, messages are only for a rules inquiry and if you do message us to enter you will be disqualified unless your book has been nominated. For monthly competitions please fill out entry forms on that month's chapter (avoid entering through the entry form chapter). For yearly entries please simply tag your story #NewWriterAwards and fill out an entry form on the yearly chapter. Stories entered into the yearly competition before it opens will be disqualified. 

13. No copyrighted work under any circumstances will be accepted. Should we discover that your work is copyright you will be disqualified from that competition or for any length of time up until a year from the disqualification date, depending on the severity of the copyright infringement. Our copyright policy is the same as Wattpad's general on please read it if you are confused. We also retain the right to put your story through a copyright screener if we are unsure of its eligibility. 

14. We remain the right to decline your submission if we find it offensive or against our policies. 

YEARLY ENTRIES ARE CURRENTLY CLOSED.