This rather wonderful, FREE, competition gives you until 30 March to enter the first 5,000 words of your unpublished novel (in the women’s fiction genre), a 100 word mini biography of yourself, and a full synopsis (no more than two sheets of A4 paper).
The prize is a book deal with Orion Publishing and a £6,000 advance.
You also need an original copy of the entry form, from January Good Housekeeping. While this edition is no longer available in the shops, you probably know someone who still has a copy – or might even be able to scrounge the entry form from a copy in your doctor’s surgery or hairdresser’s (please ask permission first!)
The winner of their last competition, Margaret Kirk, whose entry, Shadow Man, set in atmospheric Inverness, currently sits on our own bookshelves, wrote this page-turning whodunnit ‘on a chair in the living room with the cat on my knee’. I have the chair; I have the cat; what’s stopping me?
Unusually the competition asks for a hard copy to be sent to Orion Books, so give yourself enough time to interact with your printer. I’m actually looking forward to the nostalgia of queuing up at the Post Office with my brown envelope…
Good luck!
ninevoices 
Very happy to chip in here and say, look, just do it – really! I’m living, breathing proof that you could go on to win this, and I promise, it really will be life-changing! (If you want to know more, I blogged about it here:
https://margaretmortonkirk.wordpress.com/2017/12/06/making-it-up-how-a-crime-fiction-hero-and-winning-the-gh-novel-competition-changed-my-life/
Go on, just do it – and GOOD LUCK 😊
Well done Margaret. I was wondering how long it took for GH to get back to you to say you had been shortlisted.
Did they say when the winner would be announced? I think I only had something like a week’s notice to arrange my trip to London, so if you haven’t heard anything yet, I wouldn’t worry, honestly 😊
Thank you, Margaret. I think the winner is announced in August/September. Fingers crossed! Gosh! It’s hard to keep going sometimes…struggling with getting onto the next chapter. I suppose it’s just a case of ‘keep going.’
I know it’s hard, but do keep going if you can – remember, if you do win, you’ll have to commit to delivering a full manuscript by a certain date! All the best with your entry 🙂
Gillian, I see Margaret has kindly replied to this. I imagine such a summons would make any writer drop everything, even at a week’s notice!
I seem to remember something was said about the winner being announced in their September edition so, with magazines having a three-month lead time, that sounds like high summer for the shortlist.
Best of luck with your entry, anyway.
Thanks, Margaret! One reads about people winning these things, but there’s always that sneaking feeling it’s some kind of fairy story.
Hope you’re well on the way to your 500-word a day target…
*coughs*. Why yes, of course! 😉
It might still be possible to buy a copy of the January issue of Good Housekeeping http://www.hearstmagazines.co.uk