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Contest Sponsorship

Giving back a little love.

Note: The terms and offerings are subject to change. The terms were last updated in February 2021.

Status: We are currently accepting sponsorship applications!

What We Offer

(1) Duotrope sponsorship consists of two-year Duotrope Gift Certificates (a USD $100 value) for the First Place winners* in fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and visual art categories (excluding translations and scripts/plays).

(2) We will promote the contest while it is running in both the weekly (members-only) and monthly (non-member) versions of our e-mail newsletter, which currently have over 60,000 subscribers combined.

(3) If you have a Duosuma Account in good standing, we will issue 250 Duosuma Credits (USD $45 value) per sponsorship (up to a maximum of 1,000 credits per Duosuma account per calendar year). The credits will be issued on the Start Date provided in the Application form, and any unused credits will expire on the Close Date provided in the Application form. (Note: A Duosuma account is not required to qualify for Duotrope contest sponsorship. It has no bearing on our decision.)

What is Duosuma? Duosuma is Duotrope's Submission Manager. It helps publishing projects and literary agents receive and manage their submissions quickly, easily, and affordably.

* In the extremely rare event that the First Place winner has been banned by Duotrope (usually due to excessive violations of our Terms of Use) or has requested permanent deletion of their account, we will inform the contest administrator, who can then give that Gift Certificate to someone else at their discretion.

Sponsorship Terms

We accept a limited number of contests sponsorship applications per quarter. Also, we reserve the right to decline to sponsor a contest for any reason. If your sponsorship request is regretfully declined, you may apply again in a future quarter.

Sponsorship must be requested at least one month in advance of the contest's opening date and no more than six months before the start of the contest.

To qualify for sponsorship, a contest must meet the following requirements:

  • Duotrope Listing: The contest must qualify for a full, non-fledgling listing with Duotrope. If the contest is not already listed with us, the contest administrators must request a listing and have that listing approved before requesting sponsorship.
  • Contest Demographic: At a minimum, the contest must accept submissions from all citizens of legal age in the nation where the contest is based.
  • Sponsorship Acknowledgment: The contest must agree to name Duotrope as a sponsor in all contest materials and provide a link to Duotrope's home page from the contest webpage.
  • Code of Ethics: The contest administrators must agree to the following:
    • that they will make every effort to respond to all correctly submitted entries;
    • that they will not consider entries from friends, family members, or associates;
    • that the contest materials will provide clear information on
      • how the contest will be judged,
      • who will judge it,
      • when the winner will be announced, and
      • when payment will be made.
    • The winner must be announced on schedule. If a delay is unavoidable due to circumstances beyond their control, the contest administrators must provide timely and public information as to the cause of the delay and when the winners will be announced.
    • If the contest awards a cash prize, the prize money must be paid as agreed and on schedule. If a delay is unavoidable due to circumstances beyond their control, the contest administrators must notify the winners about the delay and provide regular updates until the prize money has been paid.

Contest Sponsorship Application

(For best results, enter only a word or part of a word of the contest's name; for example, for Star*Line Contest, search for "star" or "line")