You may download these rules in PDF format.
Note there is NO FEE for entering our contests. If you have any questions, write to Questions@OnThePremises.com.
1. Your story MUST be based on the current contest premise. Please make the connection between your story and the contest premise obvious!
2. Your story MUST NOT have been published elsewhere in any format, not even on a blog. However, it is okay to send us a story that has been posted to an on-line criticism board that requires a password or similar membership mechanism. In fact, we encourage using such boards, as long as they are only available to official members. Getting critiqued is good!
3. Your story’s length MUST be between 1,000 words and 5,000 words. Titles don’t count towards the word limits unless they’re so long we think you’re trying to get away with something. End-of-story markers like [end] also don’t count.
4. To enter, send an e-mail with your story as an attachment to Entries@OnThePremises.com.
a. In the BODY of the e-mail, tell us the name of your story, and give us all your contact information. This e-mail should also contain language to the effect that your story is an original, unpublished work and that, as far as you know, you have not committed plagiarism. Here’s a template you can download and use for the body of your e-mail.
b. The story itself MUST be an attachment saved in plain text format (.txt), Rich Text Format (.rtf), or Microsoft Word (.doc) format. No .wps files, please! Your attachment should contain only the story’s title, the story itself, and an ending marker like [end]. Do not put personally identifying information (your name, e-mail address, etc.) in the attachment.
5. Your story MUST be e-mailed to us within the time period specified for the contest you’re entering.
6. One submission per author per contest. If you submit two entries before a contest deadline, the second one replaces the first.
7. Stories MUST be in English. It’s okay to use non-American spelling. Also, it’s okay to have a little bit of non-English, if necessary, but no more than a that.
8. No fan fiction and no pastiches, not even ones using public-domain characters like Dracula, Little Red Riding Hood, Sherlock Holmes, or Tom Sawyer. And certainly, no copyrighted characters like Harry Potter, Goku from Dragonball Z, etc. If you wonder where the line is drawn, read this story and note how Elmer Fudd and other Warner Bros. characters are not really those characters, but impersonators.
Additional Information
These aren’t rules as much as part of a FAQ that will be built as more questions come up.
1. On The Premises buys HTML and PDF publication rights to your story. All other rights are retained by the author. If we want to purchase additional rights, we will begin new talks with authors at that time.
2. An entry can be written by more than one person. However, one person must act as the official representative of that entry, and On The Premises will communicate only with that representative. If a multi-person team wins a prize, we will send payment to the representative, and the team must decide how to divide the money.
3. On The Premises assumes no responsibility for corrupted attachments or other strange Internet problems. We will, however, tell authors that something went wrong and ask them to try again.
4. On The Premises deletes all stories that it receives and does not publish. We also delete the original e-mails after a contest is over. We DO NOT share e-mail addresses (or your fiction) with any other organization.