St. Martin’s Press and The Mystery Writers of America are hosting a novel writing contest with a $10,000 prize, to be awarded as an advance against royalties.

St. Martins is an imprint of McMillan, one of the major publishing houses, which means this contest offers a chance to land a publishing contract that has a real chance at earning well more than the $10,000 advance.

The contest is open to all writers “regardless of nationality, aged 18 or older, who has never been the author of any Published Novel.”

Note, that if you’ve previously self-published a novel you are still eligible to enter the contest.

Also note, there is no guarantee they will select any novel to win the contest. The previous contest had no winner. That’s both good and bad news. While it’s not clear why there was no 2021 winner, it could be that the standards are quite high, which means that if you have a great mystery novel, the competition may not be as stiff as it may seem.

The deadline to enter your novel is December 17th, 2021.

The novels should be full length – around 60,000 words, written in English, and written solely by the entrant.

To learn more about the contest, visit this website.