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Member only guide to the Australian book industry.
Please read the following terms and conditions carefully before submitting your work to the 2025 ASA Award Mentorship Program, as entries that fail to meet our requirements will not be accepted.
Terms and Conditions
1. The 2025 Award Mentorship Program is promoted by the Australian Society of Authors Limited (ABN 26 008 558 790) of Suite C1.06, 22-36 Mountain Street, ULTIMO, NSW (ASA).
Eligibility
2. Each entrant must be:(a) An Australian or New Zealand citizen or permanent resident; and
(b) Aged 18 years or over.
3. Entry is free for current financial members of the ASA. Non-members may enter but must pay an administration fee of $70 (inc GST) per entry.
4. Entries must be written in English.
5. In entering the competition, each entrant warrants that:
(a) They have all necessary rights to submit their entry and the material submitted has not been previously published or licensed for publication in any form in any territory;
(b) Their manuscript is their original creation;
(c) Their manuscript has not been wholly or substantially created by the use of generative AI technologies, and where generative AI software has been used to assist the creation of the work, the entrant must be transparent about the usage;
(d) To the best of their knowledge, the entry contains no defamatory matter, or any matter that invades any individual’s rights of privacy, and all statements in the work purporting to be facts are true;
(e) The entry does not infringe any existing copyright, or licence any other third party rights.
6. The award program consists of three mentorship packages:
(a) Six writers of Adult Fiction, Non-Fiction, Poetry, Young Adult and Children’s will receive:
(b) Two creators of illustrated works (Picture Book and Graphic Novel authors, author/illustrators and illustrators) will receive:
(c) Two highly commended applicants of any genre will receive:
7. Entries will be accepted in the following genres for the 20-hour mentorships for writers:
8. Entries will be accepted in the following genres for the 5-hour mentorships for creators of illustrated works:
9. The genre that creators select on their submission form will place them in the running for the corresponding mentorship package. The ASA and the assessors reserve the right to transfer a work into another genre if they deem it to be more suited to another genre.
10. Entrants may submit no more than one entry per genre. Entrants may submit entries in as many genres as they are eligible.
11. Each entry must be submitted through a separate entry form and will attract a separate fee for non-members of the ASA. Only one manuscript or illustration project can be included per entry. If more than one manuscript is included in a single entry, it will disqualify the entry.
12. Entrants must have a complete draft manuscript available when entering the mentorship program that is not (a) the subject of current discussions or negotiations with a publisher; or (b) under contract to a publisher or agent. If a publisher or agent makes an offer on a submission prior to the date of the announcement of the mentorship winners, you must send the ASA an immediate withdrawal notice from this award.
13. The word length for submitted manuscripts in the genres of Fiction, Narrative Non-Fiction and Young Adult literature must be between 55,000 and 110,000 words. No manuscripts (in any genre) can exceed 110,000 words as they will exceed the scope of the mentorship.
14. Entrants must not have previously been awarded a Copyright Agency funded mentorship via the ASA in the last five years.
15. Receipt of entries will be acknowledged by email confirmation after submission. The ASA takes no responsibility for entries that have not been submitted correctly.
16. Refunds of entry fees will not be issued for entries that do not meet the terms and conditions and are deemed ineligible.
17. The assessors, board director, employees and their immediate families of the ASA are ineligible to enter this award. Immediate family means any of the following: spouse, ex-spouse, de-facto spouse, child or step-child (whether by natural or by adoption), parent, step-parent, grandparent, step-grandparent, uncle, aunt, niece, nephew, brother, sister, step-brother, step-sister or first cousin.
Key Dates
18. Entries open at 9am AEDT on Wednesday 4 December 2024.
19. Entries close at 5pm AEDT on Friday 7 February 2025.
20. Late applications will not be eligible for consideration.
21. The recipients of the award mentorships will be announced on 2 April 2025. The recipients’ names will be published on the ASA’s website, newsletter and social media.
Selection Criteria
22. The assessors will determine the successful entrants who will be offered a mentorship. The assessors’ decision is final and no correspondence will be entered into either during or after the assessment process.
23. Entries will be assessed according to literary and artistic merit, developmental potential, and originality of the idea.
24. The mentorships will be divided across the genres depending on the number of entries received. All entries from all genres will be assessed, but not all genres may be represented in the final distribution of mentorships awarded.
25. The ASA and assessors reserve the right not to offer all the mentorships and highly commended consultations if, in their reasonable opinion, they consider that the entered works are of insufficient merit.
The Mentorships
26. Successful entrants may select their three preferred mentors from the ASA mentors register and must place their choices in order of preference. In order to ensure the cultural safety of mentees from marginalised communities, we offer the option to work with a mentor on or off our mentor’s register, provided they are willing and available to undertake the mentorship and join the ASA’s mentor’s register. The ASA will do its best to match successful entrants with their selected mentors, in order of preference, but cannot guarantee your choice.
27. Successful entrants will have an opportunity to provide their mentor with an updated version of their manuscript at the start of their mentorship. If an updated manuscript is not supplied within 4 weeks of notification, the mentors will work on the manuscript provided in the mentee’s original application.
28. The mentorships are not transferable to any other work other than the work entered and are not redeemable for cash or any other goods or services.
29. The successful entrants will be contacted by phone or email and announced on 31 March 2025 with the mentorships commencing by May 2025 subject to contracting mentors.
30. Mentorships must be completed by May 2026.
31. Recipients of a mentorship agree to include an acknowledgement to the Australian Society of Authors in any publication of their winning manuscript or illustration project.
Privacy
32. By entering the mentorship program, you are consenting to the ASA collecting your contact details for the purposes of processing your application and administering the award. The ASA may disclose your contact details to the judging panel and to the ASA mentors. The ASA may use your name, manuscript title and author bio for the purpose of announcing the winner of the award mentorships.
