Rules & Register

What Are the Rules?

The 33rd Annual International 3-Day Novel Contest takes place over the 2010 Labour Day Long Weekend (Sept. 4-6, 2010).

The Rules

1. Registration: Paid registration must be in the mail by the Friday before the contest (Sept. 3, 2010). The entry fee is $50, with some discounts available for group registrants. Registration forms (both traditional snail mail and—new this year— online) are available on the registration page.

2. Preparation:You are allowed, though not required, to develop ideas and an outline prior to the contest. You do not have to submit your outline, and you can change and adapt your novel as you see fit. Keep your outline brief—the shorter it is, the more rewarding the creative experience.

3. Location: Novels may be written using any method, and in any location, anywhere in the world. Yes, the honour system still exists! (You’d only be cheating yourself out of the experience! Seriously. We can tell if you didn’t commit to the contest.)

4. Writing: The actual writing must begin no earlier than 12:01 a.m., on the Saturday of the Labour Day weekend, and must stop by 11:59 on the following Monday. Novels may not be edited outside the contest time frame.

5. Form: The contest exists to help you write the novel you want, so you may write in any genre, on any subject you wish. There are no limits to the novel’s length, but entries average 100 typed pages, double-spaced. Thereabouts. Length is a factor in judging, but it is only one of many.

6. Collaboration: You may collaborate with up to one other author on a novel. Fees are per novel, not per writer, so if you are collaborating, you only need to submit one form. Include both author names, but only one mailing address.

7. Submitting:You are not required to submit your manuscript for judging, but we suggest you do. It completes the experience—and it’s the only way to get your certificate. Print up and mail your completed novel to us as soon as possible after the weekend is over. If you handwrote your novel, you have a few days to type it up…otherwise just send it in right away. Novels must be postmarked on or before Friday, Sept. 10, 2010 to qualify.

8. Witness statement: Include a statement, signed by a witness, confirming the novel’s completion over the Labour Day long weekend with your novel. There are no rules or templates for this statement, just make sure it affirms that you followed the rules.

9. Other rules: Manuscripts will NOT be returned so keep a copy. If you plan to revise it, please save a copy of the work in its original form. Entrants retain all copyright for their work, however, publishing an entry in any form (including self-publishing, chapbooks or web publishing) before the winner is announced will disqualify the author from winning. After the announcement, we will present the winning author with a publishing contract. All other entrants may develop, publish, dissect or ignore their novels as they wish. Each entrant holds the copyright to his or her own novel.

Mailing Instructions

Send typed, double-spaced novels, printed on standard white paper with pages numbered (no folders, clips or staples please), to the following address before Friday, Sept. 10, 2010. (Long-time entrants: please note our new mailing address!)

3-Day Novel Contest
PO Box 2106, Station Terminal
Vancouver, BC, V6B 3T5
Canada

Send novels using regular mail—the date you send it is what counts, not the date it arrives, so you don’t need to spend extra money on couriers or special packaging. SASEs and IRCs are no longer necessary.

Our team of judges spend the fall and winter reading and rereading your entries. Winners will be announced the following January. Then we distribute the prizes and send all successful entrants a list of the winners, a fancy certificate to prove that you really did it, and a coveted “I survived” sticker.

Study up on the winners!

3-Day Books are available here! Ask for these excellent fast reads at your local bookstore or library, order them direct through Paypal, or get them at special entrant prices on your registration form.

Contact Us

Forms, Fees and Instructions

Online Registration Form

Printable/Mailable Registration Form (pdf)

Group Registration Information

Important Notes

Read the rules, scan the FAQ and read this note on the right reasons to enter before submitting your form.
Fees are non-refundable, even if you do not finish the contest or submit your novel.
Registration must be submitted online or posted, with payment, on or before Sept. 3, 2010. Fees are due in CAD for Canadian residents, USD for everyone else. Make cheques out to The 3-Day Novel Contest. (Do not mail cash.) Mail to: 3-Day Novel Contest, Box 2106, Stn. Terminal, Vancouver, BC, V6B 3T5, Canada.
Group entrants must send all of their forms and payments in one envelope.
Read the rules page for information on submitting your novel after the contest.

We’ll email confirmation after we receive and log your registration. (Make sure to add both info@3daynovel.com and 3_Day_Novel_Contest@mail.vresp.com to your mail program’s “not-spam” lists.) If you mailed your registration close to or on the deadline, you likely won’t hear from us for several days after the contest. But don’t worry… if you got it to the post office by Sept. 3, it will all work out fine and good.

Questions or comments? Email us at info@3daynovel.com!

Group Registration

When you challenge your friends, you have more fun and you help get the word out about the contest. So register with a friend (or many friends) and take $1 off each individual fee for every person in your group when you enter together, to a maximum discount of $6 each.

That Means:
2 people register together for $48 each
3 people for $47 each
4 for $46 each
5 for $45 each
and between 6 and infinity for $44 each.
(CAD for Canadian residents, USD for everyone else.)

To qualify for group registration, each person in your group must fill out an individual registration form (available HERE), marking his or her individual rate on the registration fee line (e.g: Joining with 5 people for a reduced fee of $45).

Collect all of your group’s registration forms and individual payments and send them to us in one envelope, postmarked on or before September 3, 2010. We must receive the forms together for group rates to qualify. As with individual registration, fees are non-refundable.

Note:Group registration is for people who register together, but will each be completing their own novels. Group registration is not for people who plan to collaborate with another author on a single novel—in that situation the two authors only need to submit a single registration form and a single $50 fee.

Other important details:

If paying separately, each entrant’s name must be marked on his or her cheque/money order (write it on the memo line if the name isn’t already on the cheque).
Book orders will be shipped to the address on the form on which they are marked.

Novels are still to be written individually, anywhere each novelist wishes—group members don’t have to write in the same place. Manuscripts must be mailed for judging separately. Registration and moral support are the only things that need to be done as a team. In every other way, group entrants must still suffer the lone madness that is the fate of the 3-day novelist.

Gotcha. Take me back to the registration form.

I got questions! I’ll email them to you at info@3daynovel.com.