2025 Rules and Regulations
Eligibility
The Epigram Books Fiction Prize 2025 (“EBFP 2025”) is open to all citizens and permanent residents of Brunei, Cambodia, East Timor (Timor-Leste), Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam, ages 18 years old and above.
The submission must be at least 40,000 words long; entrants are encouraged to submit works that are 60,000 words or longer.
The work submitted (“Submission”) must not be posthumous.
Submissions that are under contract with or under consideration by another publisher, are not eligible.
Submissions that have been previously published in any form are not eligible. For the avoidance of doubt, works that are self-published or works that have been made available online are considered to be published.
Subject
Submissions must be fictional and they may be on any subject.
Language
Submissions must be in the English language.
Originality
Submissions must either be an original work written wholly by the author(s) or an original translation of a work translated wholly by the translator(s).
Submissions may have more than one (1) author and/or translator (each collectively referred to as an “Entrant”). Where the Submission is an original translation of a work, one (1) of the Entrants must be the original author of the work. There is no limit on the number of Entrants for each Submission. Each Submission should be accompanied by one (1) entry form, regardless of the number of Entrants.
Where the Submission is an original work, the Entrants must have the sole and exclusive rights to the Submission in all territories.
Where the Submission is an original translation of a work, the Entrants must have the sole and exclusive rights to the English language translation of the Submission in all territories.
Number of Entries
Entrant(s) may submit more than one (1) work for this competition, provided that Submissions are different and not variations of the same work. Each work needs to be submitted separately.
Closing Date
The closing date for EBFP 2025 is 01 August 2024.
Rights of Refusal
Epigram Books retains the right of first and last refusal to publish all Submissions, regardless of whether the Entrant wins a prize.
Epigram Books shall have three (3) months from the date of the winning announcement to inform all Entrants if it wishes to publish their Submission(s).
The Award
EBFP 2025 carries a monetary award of Five Thousand Singapore Dollars (SGD$5,000.00) Only for each of the four (4) shortlisted Submissions and an additional Twenty Thousand Singapore Dollars (SGD$20,000.00) Only for the winning Submission, which shall be selected from the four (4) shortlisted Submissions.
The monetary awards constitute the advances against royalties for the publication of the four (4) shortlisted Submissions, which shall only become payable when a publishing agreement has been signed.
A copy of the publishing agreement shall be made available upon request.
Where a shortlisted Submission has more than one (1) Entrant, the monetary award shall be shared equally between the Entrants. For the avoidance of doubt, the author(s) will share one half of the monetary award and the translator(s) will share the other half of the monetary award.
Announcement of Winner(s)
The prize will be awarded in February 2025. The shortlisted Entrants will be notified closer to the date of the announcement and will be invited to attend the award ceremony. If a shortlisted Entrant cannot attend this event for any reason, they may nominate a representative to accept the prize on their behalf.
Responsibilities
The shortlisted Entrants will be invited to conduct public talks, workshops and/or other events.
The shortlisted Entrants will be required to speak to the media and attend media engagements, and support Epigram Books in all marketing and publicity related to EBFP 2025.
Epigram Books reserves the right to amend these rules and regulations without prior notification.