Win $1,000 and a publishing contract with Chelsea Green by submitting one of the best proposals for the next book in our Green Guide Series!

Think you’ve got what it takes to become our next author? Have a good idea for the next Green Guide to Technology, Green Guide to Travel, Green Guide to Remodeling, or Green Guide to … Something Else? Then take a crack at writing a proposal for our next Green Guide! See the contest description and guidelines below. Good Luck!

Our big idea.
We launched our new website to bring together our readers, authors, staff members, progressive bloggers, and others in a virtual community built around a simple goal: change the world. And change starts with great ideas that can be put into practice. That’s why we are inviting the community members who come to this site to enter our Green Guide Contest.

Our Green Guide series is a collection of big ideas in small packages. [1] Current guides convey the basics you need to know to confidently get started composting, biking to work, greening your office, lowering your energy footprint, recycling to the max, and conserving water. And they convey it all in a small, 92ish-page format. In fact, our guides are small enough to travel in pockets, concise enough to make green practices seem as easy as they are, and useful enough to help their readers actually change they way they live and work.

So, about that contest.
Write to us, tell us about a Green Guide you would like to research and write, why you’d like to write it, how it should be illustrated, and a bit about yourself. If you’re one of up to five winners we’ll offer you a publishing contract that includes an advance of $1,000 against royalties.

For how to enter, see our contest guidelines below. Deadline for entries is July 4, 2008 (yes, Independence Day) in honor of the local, independent communities we hope the Green Guides will help create—free from the domination of fossil fuels, global warming, and toxic pollution.

We want to put your best ideas about how to live and work more sustainably into print.

Green Guide Contest Entry Guidelines

Thank you for your interest in our Green Guide contest. We know there are many people out there with great ideas on how to live and work more sustainably and we look forward to seeing your entry.

The Prize.
Chelsea Green will offer a publishing contract that includes a $1,000 advance on royalties to the best entry or entries for new Green Guides as judged by Chelsea Green’s contest committee. Up to five contracts will be awarded.

What to submit.
All contests have rules, right? Here are ours. They are designed to ensure that all entries are received in comparable formats and all contestants are treated fairly. So, here goes.

1. Entries must be in English and must consist of original work by the person making the submission and cannot violate any copyrights.
2. Entries must be for new books that will fit into our existing Green Guides series. In other words, the topic and contents should:
   • Promote environmentally sustainable practices.
   • Be suited to the uniform format of the Green Guides (i.e., suitable for publication in paperback that’s 4 ¾ inches wide x 6 ½ inches tall, and about 96 pages long). See examples [2] here, [3] here, and [4] here.
   • Be able to be illustrated. However, no illustrations are required at this time as part of your contest entry. If your entry is chosen as a winner, you will be responsible for supplying any artwork to be used in your Green Guide, and acquiring any rights to use artwork produced by others.
3. Multiple entries are allowed, but must be submitted separately.
4. Submit entries via email to our editorial director, Joni Praded, at contest -at- chelseagreen.com.
5. Please make the subject line of your entry read “Green Guide Entry – Your Name” (enter your own name). If you are making multiple entries, please enter the number of each entry as part of the subject line, for example “Green Guide Entry 1 - Jane Doe” and “Green Guide Entry 2 - Jane Doe.”
6. Entries must be in the form of a single word-processing document that is readable by Microsoft Word (either the .doc or .rtf format will work, but Microsoft’s new .docx format will not). Please attach this document to your email submission. If you use a program other than Microsoft Word, be sure to convert your file to a type that is readable by Word.
7. Entries must include all of the following items as part of the document you submit:
   • Your first and last name.
   • Your mailing address.
   • Your email address.
   • Your telephone number.
   • A brief (one page or less) summary of the topic of your proposed Green Guide.
   • A brief personal biography that includes information on your expertise and knowledge in the subject area of your proposed Green Guide, and a listing of any previous publications whether in the form of books, print magazine articles, or online publications.
   • A table of contents for your proposed Green Guide.
   • Brief summaries of each chapter or section of your proposed Green Guide.
   • Finished samples of your proposed Green Guide including:
     1. The Introduction/Preface (if any).
     2. A minimum of two sample chapters, if organized in chapter form.
   • Whatever the form, the samples should add up to a minimum of 3,500 words.
8. Entries must be received at contest -at- chelseagreen.com on or before Friday, July 4, 2008.
9. The winner or winners will be announced on Tuesday, September 2, 2008.

The fine print.

• Chelsea Green will make every good-faith effort to contact the winner or winners. Any winner(s) whom we are unable to contact in a reasonable amount of time will lose their claim to the prize and Chelsea Green will award that prize to the next runner up, if applicable.
• Unfortunately, Chelsea Green cannot be responsible for technical problems in email transmission, technical problems with submitted documents, or any other technical problems that may cause an entry to fail to be received as intended by the contestant. (If you don’t receive a reply acknowledging the receipt of your entry within 24 hours, we advise sending it again.)
• You will receive notice that your entry has been received, and we will inform you if you are a finalist. Again, thanks for your participation!