'Tis the season for book prizes, and, while everyone else waits with bated breath to see if Bob Dylan will attend the Nobel Prize Award Ceremony, you — yes, you! — can snag a literary award worth $100,000 for an unwritten book.
Everyone knows that publishers pay authors for the books they write, but most aspiring writers know that pitching the book you plan to write, in hopes of getting an advance on which to write it, will likely earn you nothing more than a summary rejection. That's just not the way things are done, most of the time.
The Nine Dots Prize is different. Styled as "a new prize for creative thinking that tackles contemporary societal issues," the Nine Dots tasks applicants with submitting a 3,000 word summary of their response — complete with research sources and conclusions — to the following question: Are digital technologies making politics impossible?
Submissions are open to all English-speaking entrants who are 18 years of age or older. The winner will be expected to develop their summary into a short book of 25,000 to 40,000 words, and will receive their $100,000 prize in three stages: "on award, on manuscript delivery and on publication of the book [ sic ]."
After the winner is announced in May 2017, they will have nine months to complete their book, which Cambridge University Press will publish in May 2018. Along with their summary, an entrant must also submit an outline and a testament to their ability to meet the Nine Dots' stringent deadline.
The Nine Dots Prize is open to submissions through Jan. 31.
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