It's time for the CRW 2020 Stiletto Contest! Each year, the Contemporary Romance Writers holds its writing contest that focuses on the contemporary romance genre. Members of the Contemporary Romance Writers and non-members enter the contest each year for their novels to be judged by peers for a chance to win the Stiletto Award. The contest focuses on published novels and unpublished manuscripts.

***The Contemporary Romance Writers is looking to move their contest forward with some changes to keep up with the fast-paced publishing industry. We need the expert reading knowledge of bloggers, who dedicate their time to reading diverse romance novels! We want and value your opinions of the novels entered into our annual contest.***

What novels will bloggers be judging?
The published novels category.

What is the published category?
These are novels entered into the contest by authors that have been published in 2019 in the contemporary romance genre. (The only exception would be 2019 published novels in the Women's Fiction/Cozy Mystery/Chic-Lit category.) These novels can be self-published, traditionally published, small-press published, digital press published. We accept all forms of published novels (except vanity press).

Some details about the contest:
*The contest opens for entries on March 7, 2020 and closes for entries on April 10, 2020.
*All published novels are to be in the contemporary genre with publication date in the range from 1/1/19-12/31/19.
*The categories this year include: Contemporary romance novella, contemporary romance short, contemporary romance mid-length, contemporary romance long, contemporary romantic suspense, contemporary erotic romance, YA/NA romance, and Women's Fiction/Chick-Lit/Cozy Mysteries.  
*All files will be sent ePub. These files are NOT to be shared, pirated, or distributed in any capacity. All ePub files will have watermarks attached with specific identification marks for the Stiletto Contest to be able to trace if any reports of file distribution have occurred.

What are we looking for the 2020 contest?
We are looking to add bloggers to fairly and objectively judge the diverse entries in the published category. Each entry will have 3 judges total. Two are either published or unpublished writers and the third will be a blogger.

What will be required of bloggers who are willing to judge the contest?
1. All judges are anonymous. No author/writer will be given any judge information. The only information given to the entrants are the judges' anonymous final score sheets. This is done for the integrity of the contest.
2. All judges are required to fill out a judge's score sheet. The published category has a score sheet that consists of around 5 questions. Each question is required to scored and any score below a 4 requires an explanation as to why. Of course, we also encourage any comments to any score to let the authors know what you loved about that particular category question.

See an example of a published judge's score sheet here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/10YHPNydXdfxrn1OEIyr2kUxfUwZbm19yjWuRPj-U_go/edit?usp=sharing

3. Bloggers are not to review the novel (if they choose to) until after the Stiletto Contest awards ceremony in July 2020. *Reviews are not a requirement to be a judge for the Stiletto Contest.
4. Bloggers are not to contact the author regarding their published novel. This contest prides itself on judge anonymity.
5. All judges, including writers, authors and bloggers will go through a short judge training lesson to ensure all judges understand their score sheets and scoring and comments.  

Blogger verification process.
To ensure the Stiletto Contest is judged fairly and by reputable bloggers, we will be going through a vetting process of all bloggers who would like to participate in judging the Stiletto Contest.

The vetting process will be simple. We'll verify websites, previous reviews, Facebook pages and, if appropriate, Facebook groups, and contact emails.

We will notify bloggers who will be chosen to judge the 2020 Contemporary Romance Writers Stiletto Contest by March 2020.

How many books are asked to be judged?
We'll be asking bloggers to judge 1-2 novels. If a blogger is willing to judge more, we will take that into consideration when assigning judges but it is not a guarantee.

When will judges receive their novels to be judged?
Judges will receive the published novels around April 17, 2020 (it may be a few days after, depending on number of entries that need assigned). Judges will be given around 4-6 weeks to judge their novels and return their final score sheets.

Keep in mind, this is a trial year to have bloggers judge the Stiletto Contest. We're counting on those bloggers who are willing to volunteer to judge the contest to complete their commitments. If you feel you will not be able to participate, please do not sign up to move forward with the next phase of choosing bloggers.

All bloggers chosen to judge the 2020 Stiletto Contest will be given a website/social media badge to post after the judging timeframe closes.

If you have any questions, feel free to contact us at crwstilettocontest@gmail.com. Thank you for your time!

Find out more about the Contemporary Romance Writers chapter here: https://contemporaryromance.org/