Amber Heat Contest

I pulled this directly from my publisher's website:

AQP’S 5TH ANNUAL
AMBER HEAT WAVE™ CONTEST

WIN A PUBLISHING CONTRACT FROM AMBER QUILL PRESS!

CONTEST NOW OPEN!

ATTENTION AUTHORS OF EROTIC ROMANCE...

After the success of our four previous Amber Heat Wave™ Contests, Amber Heat (our erotica imprint) and Amber Allure (our GLBT imprint) has decided to repeat the process again, welcoming you to send us the hottest, steamiest, most sizzling fiction you can create! Think you have what it takes to win a publishing contract with us? Then submit your short Erotic Romance story (see below for content guidelines and word count) to AQP's Amber Heat or Amber Allure imprints during the first two weeks of January 2008! Apart from this annual contest, Amber Heat and Amber Allure (and its parent company Amber Quill Press) remain closed to all "outside" manuscript submissions throughout each year; therefore, this will be your single opportunity in 2008 to show us your writing skills and possibly become a part of the Amber Quill Press family of authors. Winning entries will be published in electronic format in June 2008 to coincide with our 5th annual Amber Heat Wave™ celebration.


CONTEST DETAILS

To enter this contest, please carefully read and adhere to the following criteria, and also note, the rules and guidelines have changed since last year...

Dates Of Entry: January 1st through January 15th 2008.

Entry Fee: None!

Author Eligibility: Both published and non-published authors may submit. (Authors already under contract with Amber Quill Press or its imprints need not enter.)

Genre: Erotic Romance—all sub-genres are eligible...Hetero (Amber Heat) or GLBT (Amber Allure), Contemporary, Paranormal, Fantasy or Dark Fantasy (ie. Vampire, Werewolf, etc.), Historical (including Western), Science Fiction/Futuristic, Suspense/Thriller, Ménage, BDSM, Interracial, etc. (Basically, any category, genre, or sub-genre you see listed on the left-hand menu (visit the website) is eligible.)

Sexual Content: First, please view our Heat Level Info. Stories that fall into any of our three Heat Levels are eligible, although the hotter, the better. Please note: Certainly, we want stories that sizzle with sexual tension and contain explosive love scenes, yet we also want stories with strong and engaging plotlines and characters, stories that could stand on their own even without the sexual content. In other words, a story containing one-dimension characters or a flimsy plot wrapped around an endless string of meaningless sexual encounters will not impress us. Moreover, we are not looking to publish pure erotica or stories containing hard-core BDSM, pedophilia, incest, bestiality (with the exception of Shapeshifter/Fantasy stories), bodily functions, etc. Each story must focus around a romance, whether Straight or GLBT. Even if the manuscript includes ménage or group sex situations, the romance between the main M/F or GLBT couple must be front and center throughout the story. We are also not opposed to stories that do not include a "Happily Ever After" ending, as long as it's warranted, although the majority of the work we publish does indeed have an HEA ending. For a clearer understanding of the types of stories we publish, we suggest you sample several of our erotica titles.

Word Count: Stories should be between 11,000 and 18,000 words (our "Extended Amber Kiss" length).

Judging Criteria: Each story entered will be judged on the following...

Plotline and Overall Story
Story Pacing
Characterization
POV (Point Of View) Focus
Genre Appropriateness
Descriptives
Dialogue
Writing Mechanics (Grammar, Punctuation, Sentence Structure, Etc.)
Originality of Writing Style

Final Note: Authors may enter as many stories as they wish, as long as they are not contracted and not under consideration with any other publisher, nor have they been previously published. Authors must have all rights to each story submitted. Sorry, there are no exceptions.

Submission Procedure: Manuscripts must be saved in either DOC (MS Word Document) or RTF (Rich Text Format) and emailed as an attachment to us at HeatWaveContest@amberquill.com only between the dates specified above. All other formats will be rejected, as well as manuscripts sent outside of the two-week time period. Again, sorry, there are no exceptions. Stories must be saved in a single file, and all stories where each chapter is sent in its own file will immediately be disqualified. In the "Subject" line of your email, please type THE FULL TITLE of the attached manuscript and its appropriate SUB-GENRE (example: Historical Erotica, Fantasy Erotica, etc.). In the body of the email, please list your NAME, PEN NAME (if applicable), full SNAIL-MAIL ADDRESS, and your EMAIL ADDRESS. Additionally, if sending more than one entry for consideration, please send each in a separate email.

What Not To Do: Please do not send us the first chapter(s) of a full-length novel and claim it's a self-contained short story in order to skirt the word count requirements and get your foot in the door—lying to us is hardly a good first impression and the contest entry will be rejected immediately. Additionally, please do not send us several paragraphs and ask for a critique—we will look only at manuscripts that are complete and that fall within the word count requirements. Finally, do not send us a manuscript that has absolutely no formatting—although we are not sticklers for specific fonts, font sizes, or line spacing, we absolutely insist on basic paragraphs. Our contest judges will not read a manuscript made up of one long paragraph, therefore, unformatted manuscripts will also be promptly rejected.

Prize: Winning manuscripts will receive our standard two-year contract for our Amber Heat (Hetero Erotica) or Amber Allure (GLBT) imprints. Each manuscript will be properly edited and copyedited by our staff according to our in-house style guidelines, then published in June 2008 to coincide with our 5th annual Amber Heat Wave™ celebration.

Winners will be announced on March 1st, 2008 and listed on our websites and authors of the winning manuscripts will be notified by private email!

Should you have any questions or need clarification regarding any contest details, please email HeatWaveContest@amberquill.com.