Enter our 25-4-25 Contest for 2022
and Get Vital Feedback on your First 25 Pages!
Here's your chance to get a developmental edit by published and soon-to-be-published authors of your first 25 pages, and it's only $25!
Our feedback can include tips on plot, pace, characterization, dialogue—whatever it might take to attract the interest of an acquiring editor. The most promising manuscript will win our grand prize: a premium one-year subscription to Querytracker.net, to help you find the perfect acquiring agents and publishers for your project and keep track of your submissions.
Below, please find the 25-4-25 Contest rules with links to required disclaimer, and judging criteria:
Contest General Rules:
Our feedback can include tips on plot, pace, characterization, dialogue—whatever it might take to attract the interest of an acquiring editor. The most promising manuscript will win our grand prize: a premium one-year subscription to Querytracker.net, to help you find the perfect acquiring agents and publishers for your project and keep track of your submissions.
Below, please find the 25-4-25 Contest rules with links to required disclaimer, and judging criteria:
Contest General Rules:
- Hudson Valley Scribes Membership is NOT required to enter the contest
- Cost is $25, nonrefundable, paid via PayPal.
- Entries will be limited to the first 50 received. All additional entries will be returned and the money refunded.
- If you use Paypal please click www.paypal.com. The PayPal email address is hudsonvalleyromance@yahoo.com. Put 25-4-25 in comments.
- All entries must be accompanied by the contest Disclaimer which must be copied and pasted in the body of the e-mail. Please also include the Paypal confimation in the e-mail.
- Entries should be a word document (PDFs are not allowed) and should include the first 25 pages of your manuscript along with a cover page with your name, e-mail and title/genre of your unpublished, romance book-length novel or novella. The cover page should be your first page (which makes the entire submiission 26 page.). Do not send cover page as a separate attachment.
- Manuscript should be professionally presented in 12-point Times New Roman font, double-spaced, with one-inch margins all around. Any entries that do not meet this criteria will be reformatted and only the first 25 pages will be edited.
- We run 25-4-25 twice a year. Entries must be sent electronically between January 1, 2022 -May 31, 2022, for winners to be announced by September. Entries sent between June 1-November 30th will have winners announced by March 1, 2023.
- Send entries to contest coordinator: Liz Mattila at hudsonvalleycontest@gmail.com
- For the purposes of this contest, the author’s name should not appear on the manuscript.
- We will return manuscripts within 3 months with edits. Scoresheets will NOT be sent to authors; they are for internal use only.
- Winners will be announced in September, 2022 and March, 2023. In the case of a score tie, manuscripts will be judged by a team of three published authors.
- Editing by HV Scribes authors in no way guarantees agent/publisher interest or action. Opinions are those of the HV Scribes member/editor only.
- The criteria on which your entry will be scored can be found here.
- Please direct any questions to hudsonvalleycontest@gmail.com
2022 Winner: The Countess Game by Deborah Cay Wilding!
After earning a degree in English Literature, Deborah Cay Wilding worked as a librarian and organized a
collection of archival photographs before turning her hand to writing. She was inspired to write and self-
publish her first British-themed historical romance, “The Making of a Lady,” after making several coast-
to-coast hikes across England and Scotland where she poked around in dusty old castles along the way.
The novel is a blend of history and fiction that won the 2021 Book Buyers Best Award in Historical and
Regency Romance. She lives in Hawaii, and when she’s not writing she enjoys hiking with her dog and
everything outdoors.