Book Pipeline: Unpublished
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Book Pipeline
Book Pipeline: Unpublished
2021
Active Since 2020
The 2025 Book Pipeline Unpublished contest seeks new manuscripts across ten categories of fiction and nonfiction, including comics and graphic novels.
View Latest Season
This season has closed, but there's a new season open now!
About
Winners Receive:
$15,000 | industry circulation | executive development
The 2021 Book Pipeline: Unpublished contest is exclusively for unpublished manuscripts across 6 categories of fiction and nonfiction:
Literary
Mystery / Thriller
Sci-Fi / Fantasy
Young Adult
Middle Grade
Nonfiction
Select publishers and agents get first look at the top selection for each category, including Katherine Tegen Books, Creative Artists Agency, and Verve Publishing.
Benefits
Winners and Runners-Up receive:
- $15,000 to winners ($2,500 for each category winner)
- Immediate circulation to publishers, agents, editors, and other execs
- Consideration from producers seeking projects for film and TV adaptation
- Additional long-term review of other books for potential circulation
- Invitations to annual writer and industry events hosted by Pipeline Media Group
CATEGORIES
Unpublished fiction and nonfiction may be submitted to the following categories. One (1) Grand Prize Winner and one (1) Runner-Up are selected for each category, with the Grand Prize Winner receiving immediate, exclusive "first look" review of the agency/publisher supporting their respective category.
Fiction (Literary)
Typically, literary fiction leans more heavily into rich prose and overarching thematic resonance than plot or action.
Sample Titles: Less, The Orphan Master's Son, The Goldfinch, All the Light We Cannot See, Where the Crawdads Sing, The Overstory.
Winner Reviewed By: Ian Bonaparte, Associate Agent (Janklow & Nesbit Associates)
Fiction (Mystery / Thriller)
Subgenres include but are not limited to: Psychological Suspense, Crime, Horror, Hard-boiled/Noir, Legal/Medical, and LGBTQ+.
Sample Titles: The Girl on the Train, Gone Girl, The Long Drop, The Last Mrs. Parrish, The Associate, Sharp Objects.
Winner Reviewed By: Amy Tannenbaum, Agent (Jane Rotrosen Agency)
Fiction (Sci-Fi / Fantasy)
Subgenres include but are not limited to: Dystopian, Steampunk, Supernatural, Post-Apocalyptic, LGBTQ+, and Speculative.
Sample Titles: The Martian, Ready Player One, The Handmaid's Tale, Station Eleven, The Power, The Bear and the Nightingale.
Winner Reviewed By: Italia Gandolfo & Renee Fountain, Agents (Gandolfo Helin & Fountain Literary Management)
Fiction (Young Adult)
For readers between the ages of 12-18, Young Adult (YA) subgenres include but are not limited to: Contemporary, Historical, Sci-Fi/Fantasy, LGBTQ+, Romance, and Mystery/Thriller.
Sample Titles: The Hate U Give, The Hunger Games, The Fault in Our Stars, You Should See Me in a Crown, Thirteen Reasons Why, The Perks of Being a Wallflower
Winner Reviewed By: Ben Rosenthal, Executive Editor (Katherine Tegen Books, an imprint of HarperCollins Children's) - publisher of the Divergent trilogy by Veronica Roth
Fiction (Middle Grade)
For readers between the ages of 8-12, Middle Grade (MG) subgenres include but are not limited to: Contemporary, Historical, Sci-Fi/Fantasy, LGBTQ+, Action/Adventure, and Mystery/Thriller.
Sample Titles: A Wrinkle in Time, Bridge to Terabithia, Wonder, Because of Winn-Dixie, Out of My Mind, The Crossover.
Winner Reviewed By: Mollie Glick, Agent (Creative Artists Agency)
Nonfiction
Subgenres include but are not limited to: Autobiography, Memoir, Biography, Historical, Creative Nonfiction, and Politics.
Sample Titles: Wave, Between the World and Me, Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail, I'll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman's Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer, Midnight in Chernobyl: The Untold Story of the World's Greatest Nuclear Disaster, The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz.
Winner Reviewed By: Liz Parker, Agent (Verve Publishing) - the publishing division of Verve Talent & Literary Agency
Announcements
Oct 10th
Grand Prize Winners
Oct 10th
Runners-up
Rules
CRITERIA
- Submit approximately the first 5,000 words only + full synopsis (1-3 pages).
- Writers may register early if their work is in-progress. Fiction entrants must have a completed manuscript by the time results are announced on October 10th, 2021, in the event they are selected for industry circulation. For nonfiction entrants, it is acceptable to just have a full proposal---although having a completed manuscript is very beneficial, particularly for memoirs.
- All entries are final once they have been submitted. No updates or revisions permitted.
- While there isn't a hard and fast rule for word count, all entries, both fiction and nonfiction, should be at full standard industry length. This typically means, depending on the genre, anywhere from 20,000 to 120,000 words. Please ensure that your manuscript fits within the typical standards of your submission category.
- Entries must fall into one of the aforementioned categories.
- Authors may submit multiple entries, but each entry can only compete in a single category.
- What is not eligible: Novellas, Short Stories, Poetry, Plays, Graphic Novels, Screenplays, Pilots, or anything else that is not an unpublished, full-length work of fiction or nonfiction. Self-published and traditionally published material can be submitted to Book Pipeline: Adaptation. Screenplays, pilots, and film or TV pitches may be submitted to Script Pipeline.
Other details:
- PDF only.
- No limit on the number of entries. Each entry is a separate fee.
- Supplemental documents (illustrations, additional information or media, etc.) are entirely optional and may be emailed separately after registering.
- Simultaneous submissions are allowed (i.e., you can submit the material elsewhere while in competition).
- Book Pipeline does not take a percentage of any future publication deal, nor do we act as an agent or publisher.
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- ABOUT BOOK PIPELINE -
Launched in 2014, Book Pipeline connects writers worldwide with publishers, editors, agents, and the film industry. Through two submission platforms--Unpublished and Adaptation--the company seeks both new and established authors and playwrights.
For 20 years, Script Pipeline has bridged the gap between up-and-coming writers and the industry through a unique, long-term, hands-on facilitation process. The result thus far has been $8 million in scripts sold to studios and networks since 1999, most recently the seven-figure sale of Script Pipeline finalist Bring Me Back to Legendary Entertainment. In total, across both Book and Script Pipeline, approximately 25,000 pieces of creative material are reviewed annually, with over 4,000 entries submitted to Book Pipeline in 2020.
