The Crime Writers’ Association

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Terms and conditions, rules and eligibility criteria for CWA awards and competitions

Please select an award or competition to read the rules.

The CWA Daggers

Three categories of people can nominate a title for the CWA Daggers.

PUBLISHERS

Only publishers who are on the CWA List of Approved Publishers will be eligible to enter the CWA Dagger Awards – if you are not listed please contact dagger.liaison@gmail.com to confirm your eligibility and to be added to the list.

Relating to the CWA Dagger Awards for: Gold; Ian Fleming Steel; ILP John Creasey First Novel Dagger; Historical Dagger; Twisted Dagger; Whodunnit Dagger; ALCS Gold for Non Fiction; Crime Fiction in Translation and Short Story Dagger: Any UK publisher may enter titles provided that the work is relevant to the appropriate award, as defined under Eligibility (section 2), and the first UK edition was published within the specified dates of the Judging Period (section 1). Publishers in the Republic of Ireland who distribute in the UK via trade channels but do not have a presence in the UK will be accepted if the book is priced in pounds sterling or was dual priced £/€. The definition of “work” is a novel, short story or non-fiction book.

A 50% discount of the fee applies to titles by CWA members.

TRADITIONALLY PUBLISHED AUTHORS

Any author, published by an Approved Publisher in the UK, can self-nominate their book or story provided that the work is relevant to the appropriate award, as defined under Eligibility (section 2), and the first UK edition was published within the specified dates of the Judging Period (section 1). They do not have to be CWA members, but if they are they will be entitled to a 50% discount of the fee.

SELF-PUBLISHED AUTHORS

Self-published authors can self-nominate their book or story if they are a CWA member, provided that the work is relevant to the appropriate award, as defined under Eligibility (section 2 below), and the first UK edition was published within the specified dates of the Judging Period (section 1 below). A 50% discount of the fee applies. Please note that hard copies and digital copies are expected to be sent.

PUBLICATION DATE

For the purposes of these Terms and Conditions, the date of publication of a work is defined as follows:

Where a work is published in both digital and physical formats, the publication date is the date of publication of the first physical copy of the work.

Where a work is published in digital format only, the publication date is the date on which the download is first made available to the purchaser.

No work, however many formats and editions in which it is published, may have more than one publication date for the purposes of entry to the Daggers.

  1. DEADLINES

The 2026 Daggers are for works published from 1 January 2025 to 31 December 2025 inclusive.

Publishers and authors are encouraged to send their books to the judges as soon as copies
are available. The cut-offs for delivery to the judges are as follows:

Books published within the first 6 months of the year:
31 June 2025 – submissions deadline
31 July 2025 – deadline for the books to reach the judges.

Books published within the second 6 months of the year:
15 November 2025 – submissions deadline
deadline for getting them to the judges.
15 December 2025 – deadline for the books to reach the judges.

This is to prevent a backlog of titles arriving in the final weeks. To help facilitate the judging we suggest that works might be submitted in advance of true publication date by supplying judges with proofs if available.

  1. ELIGIBILITY

For publishers to be eligible to register to enter books for the CWA Dagger awards they must comply with the following:

That they offer an author a contract with a full service publisher who pays royalties and does not require the author to pay any part of the cost of publication. This includes the costs of producing and marketing their book and any editorial services. If the publisher is located outside the UK it must also be registered in the UK; books from distributors only are not eligible.

For traditionally published authors to be eligible, their publisher must comply with all the above.

For self-published authors, they must be members of the CWA and the book must be published within the UK.

Only one title per author per award may be submitted.

Titles may be entered for any other literary award, including the other CWA Daggers. Translated works are also eligible for the Ian Fleming Steel, Historical and ILP John Creasey First Novel Daggers, the key date being that of UK publication and not the original foreign language publication.

  1. SUBMISSIONS

An online nomination form must be completed for each title entry submitted and the appropriate processing fee paid with nomination. Once the details entered have been checked and the processing payment received, you will be emailed details of where to post the books.

For Short Stories which have been broadcast but not published, please contact the Dagger Liaison Officer for information on how to submit.

  1. PROCESSING FEE

In order to offset some of the Association’s costs, a processing fee will be charged for each submission per dagger award, and is non-refundable. The fee is £75.00 per title (£90 incl. VAT).  A collection of short stories will also be £75.00 (£24.00 per individual short story; £30 inc. VAT). The title of a fully paid-up CWA member can be submitted for half the regular fee. All processing fees are subject to VAT.

The nomination process linked to an online shop. The processing fee is due and payable at the same time as the nomination. The fee can be made via Paypal or Stripe payment processors, either using a credit or debit card linked to that processor or an account.

Fees may also be paid by Bank Transfer. Please use your Order ID as the payment reference. Your order will not be completed until the funds have cleared in our account. Payment is due no later than 30 days from the date of invoice. If you have purchased a Dagger nomination failing to make payments will result in the nomination being invalidated and withdrawn from the Dagger(s) entered.

After the nomination(s) and processing fee(s) are received, you will be sent the judges’ details. Please note that if a nomination is withdrawn for any reason, the processing fee remains due and payable.

It is the publisher or nominating author’s responsibility to ensure that all payments are safely received by the CWA by the 25th December 2025. Beyond this date the book could be disqualified.

It is also the publisher or nominating author’s responsibility to ensure that the nominated title is eligible for the Dagger(s) for which it is submitted. If it is not, the title will be withdrawn from the relevant Dagger(s) and the nomination fee(s) forfeit.

  1. SENDING BOOKS

You will be sent a PDF file which will provide you with a set of cover sheets containing the judges’ contact details.

The CWA takes the privacy and security of individuals and their personal information very seriously and takes every reasonable measure to protect and secure the personal data that we process. Therefore we require that you respect the private details of the judges, not share them with third parties and not enter into direct contact with them beyond the delivery of your submission. If you abuse this rule we reserve the right to withdraw your book from the competition and the processing fee will be forfeited. Should you wish to discuss any issues, then it must be via the DLO.

One copy of each book should be sent to ALL judges including the chair of judges (unless otherwise instructed on page 2 of the PDF). Please enclose the cover sheet with each book; this will assist the judges identifying the name of the Dagger for which the book is being submitted. It would be a great help to the judges if you ensure that the label on each parcel bears the name of the Dagger for which the book is being submitted. Please do not send books to the papers or magazines for which the judge reviews, unless otherwise instructed. Please use Royal Mail to deliver books where possible, as it can be hard for judges to rearrange deliveries of missed packages with other couriers.

Where a book has been published in digital format only, this section should be complied with by providing print-outs of a pdf file of the work.

  1. FURTHER T&CS

It is a condition of entry that publishers, self-nominating and self-published authors:

Submission of any entry will be taken as complete acceptance of these conditions. The CWA will run a campaign promoting the shortlisted titles for all Daggers through social media and other communications. In common with most other similar awards we do not give advance notice to winners.

The eligibility period for the current judging period is 1 January 2025 – 31 December 2025.

The Emerging Author Dagger

The Emerging Author Dagger (formerly the Debut Dagger), an international competition for the opening of an adult/YA crime novel and synopsis, is aimed at debut writers.

The CWA defines a debut writer for the purposes of this competition as a writer who has no traditional novel publication experience and only limited experience as a self-published author of fiction by the time the prize is awarded, and who does not have a literary agent at the time the competition closes for entries.

  1. You must never have had a traditional publishing contract for any work of fiction over 20,000 words.
    • If you gain such a contract before the Emerging Author Dagger is awarded, you must withdraw your novel from the competition.
    • Traditionally published authors of any novel or novella, regardless of genre, or of children’s fiction of any kind except picture books are not eligible to enter.
    • Authors of published works of fiction of under 20,000 words are eligible.
    • Authors of published works of non-fiction are eligible.
  2. You must not have made any work of fiction over 20,000 words available to the public in the last three years. This includes traditionally published as above, and also independently (or self-) published novels and novels published with a non-traditional contract; i.e. where the author contributes to a publisher’s costs.
  3. You must not have a contract with a literary agent by the time the competition closes on the last working day of February. If you do acquire an agent after that date, it won’t affect your eligibility, but as a courtesy we need to be informed.
  4. Writers can enter from any country providing their entry is written in English.
  5. Writers can make multiple entries. However, no individual writer will be allowed more than one entry on the longlist.
  6. A co-authored work is acceptable for entry, with a maximum of three writers. All writers must fulfil the eligibility criteria outlined in these rules.
  7. You must enter in your own name.
  8. Members of the CWA are not eligible to enter the Emerging Author Dagger unless your publications, to the date the winner is announced, are exclusively non-fiction, or you are an Emerging Author member and otherwise meet the eligibility rules. Questions over eligibility are entirely at the CWA’s discretion.
  9. No novel that has made the shortlist in the past can be entered again in the Emerging Author Dagger competition, even if it has been substantially revised and retitled. If a novel has been longlisted and not shortlisted, re-entry is acceptable.
  10. Your entry must consist of no more than 3,000 words of your novel’s opening (excluding headings and page numbers). In the same file, after the novel, you must provide a synopsis of the whole novel of up to 1,500 words. (NB You do not need to have completed your novel to enter.)
  11. Longlisted writers will be asked to provide a further 3,000 words from their novel shortly after the announcement. This section will be requested from later in the novel rather than consecutive to the first 3,000 words.
  12. Your name must not appear anywhere on the entry itself; only the novel’s title should appear. Your name should only appear in the accompanying form.
  13. No entry is eligible unless accompanied by the appropriate fee.
  14. Any entrant who submits a file or email containing a virus will be disqualified and forfeit their entry fee.
  15. The file cannot be amended or changed in any way once it has been submitted. At our discretion, and only where practicable, we may notify an entrant of an unreadable file or other problem and invite them to resubmit the entry.

The writer is responsible for ensuring their own eligibility and that their entry complies with the rules above. If they are ineligible or the entry does not comply, then the entry will be disqualified and the fee forfeit.

HOW TO ENTER

The Emerging Author Dagger opens 1 October and the deadline for entry is Friday 28 February at 6pm GMT.

Click through to the shop to buy your £42 entry fee. Please note: you can buy your entry in advance of submitting with a pre-paid voucher (scroll down to the bottom of ‘the shop’ page to find the link). If you choose to do so, you will be sent a code which you’ll need to use when you submit your entry. Keep it safe. When you’re ready to submit, go back to Submit an entry and click on the Emerging Author Dagger product in the shop (not the pre-pay). Go to your basket when prompted, and at the foot add in your voucher number and hit Apply. That takes care of the payment aspect. After that, you’ll have access to the entry form. Simply complete the form and upload your submission.

You must have both paid for the entry and submitted it by the deadline of 6pm GMT 28 February 2025.

You must let us know of any difficulties before the deadline of 6pm GMT on the final day of the competition. If you’ve not made a payment or submission before the deadline, and then you report a problem, we won’t be able to help. It’s in your interests to make the entry before 5.59pm for this reason!

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

Manuscripts must fall within the prescribed word limit and not exceed it, even by a few words. Entries where more than the first 3,000 words of the novel opening are submitted will be disqualified and the entry fee forfeit. (NB Headings and page numbers don’t count towards the 3,000 words.)

The synopsis can be up to 1,500 words. The synopsis should appear at the end of the novel opening and only one file in total must be submitted.

In the field where the word count is requested, this count should ideally be for the manuscript and the synopsis combined, excluding title and chapter headings. If you get this wrong, don’t worry as we check the word count anyway.

Files should be in doc, docx or pdf format.

Manuscripts should be 12pt, double spaced, in an easily readable font such as Times, Arial or Helvetica.

Pages should be numbered.

Manuscripts must not include the author’s name or contact details; only the title of the work. There is no need for a title sheet.

Your name should only appear on the entry form. Manuscripts will be allocated a unique CWA reference number.

If you have any queries about your submission, please contact Dea Parkin, the Competitions Coordinator: comps@thecwa.co.uk

KEY DATES

The 2024 competition opens 1 October, closing at 6pm GMT on 28 February.

Late submissions cannot be considered.

The longlist will be announced on 16 April, time and location to be determined.

The shortlist will be announced on 29 May, time and location to be determined.

The winner will be announced at the Daggers Dinner in July in London. The dinner is open to all and tickets go on sale in the summer.

All announcements will also appear on this website shortly after.

 

COST OF ENTRY

£35 + VAT = £42.

Please note we can only accept payments via the CWA Shop and via the website submission process, except in special circumstances.

We will always do our best to assist with any difficulties experienced with either payment or submission. If these occur in the final hours of the competition, then providing we have evidence of attempted payment/submission before the deadline we will help the next working day and your entry will be valid.

JUDGING

A longlist of entries, selected by professional readers, will be forwarded to a final judging panel chaired by the CWA Criminal Critiques coordinator and comprising crime fiction editors from major publishing houses and literary agents.

The judges’ decision is final and we will not enter into any correspondence about the result.

BENEFITS

The winner will receive a prize of £500.
Shortlisted authors will receive a brief professional assessment of their entry.
Shortlisted entries are sent to UK publishers and agents.
Shortlisted entries gain public exposure on the CWA’s platforms and in national media.

PLEASE NOTE

  1. We reserve the right to amend any of the above during the competition. Any change will be notified on the website.
  2. There is no commitment to publish the winning entry.
  3. Copyright will remain with the entrant.

Margery Allingham Short Mystery Competition

Please read all terms carefully before submitting your entry. Please pay attention to the Margery Allingham’s definition of a mystery and the chronology it outlines.

Submission of an entry is taken as acceptance of all the terms and conditions of entry.

Incomplete entry forms and short stories not submitted in accordance with these terms and conditions will not be eligible for consideration and the fee will be forfeit.

The entry fee is £18 and this should be paid on entry via the CWA shop here.

ELIGIBILITY

Proof of any of the following conditions of eligibility may be requested from entrants at any time and will be checked at the short list stage.

  1. This international prize is for a single, previously unpublished short story of up to 3,500 words by an author aged 18 years or over on 1 January of the competition year.
  2. Entries must be submitted in English but the author does not need to be resident in the United Kingdom. Translations of short stories originally published in languages other than English are not eligible.
  3. Entries will not be eligible where the author is a member of the judging panel, anyone involved in the administration of this award or a close family relative of any such person.
  4. The submitted story must not have been previously published on any platform including digital.
  5. A story submitted will not be eligible if the author dies prior to the deadline in any competition year.

ENTRY

  1. Entries may only be submitted online via the specific entry form on the CWA website (www.thecwa.co.uk). Entries submitted in any other form will not be accepted.
  2. Entries may be submitted from 1 October 2024 to 6pm GMT 28 February 2025. Entries submitted after that time will not be accepted. Entries may be submitted by the author, his/her publisher or his/her agent.
  3. Although the entries will be assessed anonymously, they must be submitted in the author’s own name.
  4. The submission of an author’s work by the publisher/agent will be taken as agreement by the author that he/she is willing for the submitted work to be considered and to comply with these terms and conditions.
  5. Authors may only enter individually, not as part of a team.
  6. The story submitted must be (and by submission is warranted by the authors and accepted by the CWA Margery Allingham Short Mystery Competition to be) original, fictional and entirely the author’s own work. It must not infringe the copyright or any other rights of any third party and not be libellous, unlawful or defamatory of any living person or corporate body.
  7. Entry must be accompanied by the fee of £18, payable via the CWA Shop by PayPal or Stripe. If the PayPal or Stripe account name and the name of the competition entrant are different, payees should indicate when making payment the entrant’s name and the title of the story.

THE SHORT STORY SUBMISSION

Margery Allingham remarked that: “The Mystery remains box-shaped, at once a prison and a refuge. Its four walls are, roughly, a Crime, a Mystery, an Enquiry and a Conclusion with an Element of Satisfaction in it.”

  1. The story must not exceed 3,500 words.
  2. The story may be on any theme but must satisfy the Margery Allingham’s definition of a mystery (above) and its chronology.
  3. The format of the story must adhere to the following rules:
    * The name of the author must not appear anywhere within the story
    * The name of the story and word count (excluding title) to be included within the header on every page.
  4. We prefer stories to be typed in an easy-to-read font such as Arial or Times New Roman and in no smaller than 11pt. We also prefer page numbers to appear, but not adhering to these recommendations will not disqualify the entry.
  5. One writer can enter any number of stories provided each is accompanied by the entrance fee. However, no more than one story by the same writer can be longlisted.
  6. Stories which previously have been shortlisted are not eligible for re-entry, even if they have been substantially revised.

JUDGING

  1. Entries will be judged anonymously; and the name of the author will not be linked to the story/made available to either the initial readers or the judges.
  2. The judges of the CWA Margery Allingham Short Mystery Competition will be looking for what they think is the best entry on the basis of quality and originality of prose, narrative voice, plausibility and storyline.
  3. All entries will initially be read and judged by a team of readers who will score the entries to produce a smaller number of stories for the judging panel to read. The shortlist will be announced via the CWA website (www.thecwa.co.uk) and shortlisted authors will be contacted directly.
  4. The longlist will be announced on 12 April 2025 at the CWA Northern Symposium. The shortlist and winner will be announced at a time to be determined.
  5. The winner will receive prize money of £500.
  6. The winning story will be published on the CWA website and submission is an acceptance of this.
  7. The winner may be invited to have their story published in the Margery Allingham Society journal subject to timings and eligibility and at the editor’s discretion. Entry means acceptance of this publication if offered.
  8. The judging panel will be appointed by the Margery Allingham Society with the approval of the Chair of the CWA. Its decisions will be made in an impartial and fair way and will be final. No discussion or correspondence about the result will be considered, nor will any feedback be given.

SHORTLIST AND WINNER

  1. All shortlisted entrants will be contacted personally by email using the details provided at the time of entry.
  2. By submitting an entry, entrants of all winning or shortlisted entries agree to ensure that in the event that any winning or runner-up entry is subsequently published, including in any anthology publications, it will carry the Crime Writers’ Association logo if requested to do so and provided all materials bearing such approved credits, logos or trademarks are pre-approved by the Crime Writers’ Association. Such accreditation if required will be provided to the winner and shortlisted authors.

COPYRIGHT AND TERMS OF USE

Entrants retain the copyright in their entries, but by submitting a story for the competition entrants acknowledge and agree that each shortlisted entrant:

  1. Grants to the Crime Writers’ Association, its affiliates, licensees, successors and assignees a worldwide sub-licensable, perpetual, transferable, non-exclusive royalty fee licence to use in any way whatsoever including but not limited to: public performance, public display, publishing, reproduction, broadcasting, amendment or modification of the entry or any part of the entry on and through the website www.thecwa.co.uk or any website associated with the CWA in its different present and future forms – for example newsprint, Braille, talking book, podcast, audio download, electronic databases, e-book, mobile device application, electronic media or website including mobile form or any other facsimile or derivative versions in any medium;
  2. Without prejudice to the above, grants CWA and the Margery Allingham Society a non-exclusive, perpetual, royalty-free licence to publish the winning entry and an extract of the shortlisted stories.

All entrants (whether author, publisher, agent) will be deemed to have granted the rights for publication and distribution in the following formats: paper, e-paper, e-book, downloadable format, talking book, podcast, mobile device applications, electronic media or website including mobile form or in any other present or future form of publication, and they or their agents will clear the necessary rights for such publications and distribution. The rights for publication will be non-exclusive, with no bar on publication rights elsewhere.

ADMINISTRATION

  1. All announcements in relation to the CWA Margery Allingham Short Mystery Competition will be published on www.thecwa.co.uk, or via the CWA X (formerly Twitter) feed (@The_CWA)
  2. Entrants must provide their name, email address, telephone number and postal address on the initial entry form.
  3. The competition will be administered by the CWA. The CWA will only ever use personal details for the purposes of administering the award, and will not publish them or provide them without permission to anyone not involved in the administration of the award.
  4. Entrants must supply full details as required above, and comply with all rules to be eligible for the prize. Ineligible, obscene or fraudulent entries will automatically be disqualified.
  5. The CWA reserves the right to refuse any entry for any reason at its absolute discretion, and reserves the right to vary the Rules and Conditions of Entry, and alter the published programme, as may be deemed necessary. Any amendments will be published on www.thecwa.co.uk.
  6. The CWA reserves the right to cancel, modify or supersede this competition (including amending prizes) at any stage, if deemed necessary in its opinion, or if circumstances arise outside of its control.
  7. By entering, all eligible entrants will be deemed to have accepted these rules and to agree to be bound by each and all of these terms and conditions. The CWA reserves the right to exclude entrants and withhold prizes for violating any of these terms and conditions.
  8. The submission of an author’s work by a publisher or agent will be taken as agreement by the author that s/he is willing for the submitted work to be considered and that s/he consents to and approves of all terms and conditions contained herein and as agreement by the published or agent guarantee and procure the author’s compliance with these terms and conditions. If such publisher or agent fails to do the foregoing, the CWA may at its sole discretion disqualify the entry and/or reclaim any award and/or associated prize money and revise the shortlist and (if applicable) winning entry. Any author who submits an entry warrants that s/he has obtained all necessary publisher and/or agent consents required to submit an entry in accordance with these terms and conditions. NB The story must not have been published on any platform.
  9. All entrants will indemnify the CWA against loss or damage (including any legal costs or expenses and any compensation costs and disbursements paid by the CWA team on the advice of legal counsel to compromise or settle any claim) occasioned by the CWA in consequence of any breach of the warranties contained in these terms and conditions or arising out of any claim alleging that the submitted entry constitutes an infringement of copyright or contains libellous, obscene or defamatory matter.
  10. There is no alternative to the prize stated and the prize is not transferable and no part or parts of the prize may be substituted for other benefits, items or additions.
  11. The CWA will not be liable for any failure of receipt of entries. The CWA has no responsibility for any entries which are lost, delayed, illegible, damaged, incomplete or otherwise invalid. If the CWA is unable to contact a shortlisted author despite making reasonable attempts to do so, the judges will be entitled to short-list another entry. Other than the death or personal injury arising from the acts or omissions of the CWA it will not be liable for any loss or damage arising out of the winner’s enjoyment of the prize.
  12. The promoter of this award is the Crime Writers’ Association.
  13. These terms and conditions are governed by the laws of England and Wales and entrants submit all matters arising in relation to these terms and conditions or the CWA to the jurisdiction of the courts of England and Wales. Nothing contained in this clause shall limit the rights of the CWA, its affiliates or subsidiaries, successors or assignees, to bring a claim against any part in any other jurisdiction.