Surreally Yours

While “magical realism” looks like an oxymoron, magic and reality - though seemingly contradictory - have always coexisted in our world. Humans from all over have embraced gods and deities, angels and demons, ghosts and bogeymen as unavoidable elements of their lives. It seems that human beings are hardwired for this, with many accepting the magical and fantastical as truth in their childhoods, and for others, their whole lives.

Many eastern cultures and indigenous communities still do not have fixed boundaries between the natural and the supernatural. They accept the irrational, inexplicable and improbable, going through their lives with an undercurrent of magic in the everyday. Mark Twain said, “Truth is stranger than fiction,” and we’re inclined to agree, because life gets pretty strange sometimes.

What is reality? Is it what we can perceive with our senses? Yet, we know that our senses cannot be trusted; that our minds play tricks on us, and what our senses perceive really are just electrical impulses in the brain. How does any matter have form when everything is made up of infinitely smaller building blocks, with lots of space in between the particles held together by strange forces? What of phantom limb pain, mass hallucinations, or even lucid dreams? While philosophers, scientists and writers have tried defining reality, it continues to prove as elusive as quicksilver.

Reading is a magical portal that allows us to travel to distant lands and live many lives, and magical realism allows for the inclusion of alternative belief systems that defies logic. We must find magic in the little things around us, or it will be lost to us. With our limited notions of reality, perhaps it would serve us to suspend our rational minds every now and then, so that we may transcend the ordinary and live enchanted lives.

Important Dates

Accepting submissions: 1 May 2017, 00:00 EST

Closing date: 11 June 2017, 23:59:59 EST

Results: 30 July 2017

Prize: US$1000

Official Rules

1. Only one entry per person is allowed for each contest. Any entrant who enters more than one entry per contest will be disqualified.
2. All entries must be book proposals written in english and 1000 words long. Publishizer will only accept unpublished works for all contests. If an entry has previously been published in any way, the entry will be disqualified.
3. Contest entries must be submitted, approved and launched online on Publishizer within the specified month of each contest to qualify. Publishizer will begin accepting entries at midnight EST on the 1st of each contest month, and close for submissions at 23:59 EST on the last day of that month, unless the closing date for submissions is extended.
4. Each contest has a cash prize of USD1000 and may be subject to local, state and federal taxes. The prizes are not transferable, and the winner is responsible for all tax payments, international chargers, transfer fees and/or monetary currency conversion charges related to all cash prizes. Publishizer will only be responsible for the original cash prize amounts, not responsible for any additional costs, monetary transfers, charges or fees imposed between a financial or governmental institutions and the winner.
5. The entry with the most number of pre-orders sold in 45 days from date of launch wins the cash prize of USD1000.
6. The winner will be notified by email 30 days after the contest closing date, and receive information on when, where and how the prize can be collected. If the winner cannot be contacted or does not claim the prize within 14 days of notification, Publishizer reserves the right to withdraw the prize from the winner and pick a replacement winner, which will the book proposal with the next highest number of pre-orders sold within 30 days.
7. Publishizer takes only a 30% commission of all pre-order sales at the end of the crowd-publishing campaign. The commission on pre-order sales is final and no cash or other alternatives will be offered. Publishizer takes no commission from future deal authors make with publishers, nor cuts from future book sales after the crowd-publishing campaign has ended.
8. In the event of a tie, the winner will be determined by the campaign with the most number of readers registered on their campaign. If the number of readers are tied as well, the tied campaigns will have a further 24 hours to obtain more readers. The campaign with the most readers at the end of the 24 hours wins.
9. Book proposals that do not respect the Publishizer guidelines may be rejected. In the event of a rejected proposal, no correspondence relating to the contest will be entered into.
10. By entering any of the Publishizer book proposal contests, an entrant agrees to abide by and be subject under Publishizer general terms and conditions and the Publishizer book proposal contest official rules.
11. Any “spamming”, harassment, suspicious or offensive behaviour and/or inappropriate use of the Publishizer website or email address is strictly forbidden. Publishizer reserves the right to disqualify any entrant if it has reasonable grounds to believe the entrant has breached any of the official rules and terms and condition. Any entrant deemed to be engaged in any fraudulent and/or suspicious activity will prompt an immediate disqualification of that party’s submission(s) into all past, present and future contests.
12. Publishizer shall have the right, at its sole discretion and at any time, to change or modify these terms and conditions, and such change shall be effective immediately upon posting to this webpage.
13. Publishizer reserves the right to cancel the competition if circumstances arise outside of its control, or if it is deemed that a contest received insufficient entries.
14. Only the number of preorders and readers registered on the campaign within 30 days of the launch date of the campaign will count towards the contest.
15. Anyone may participate. There are no purchase requirement or entry fee to enter any of the Publishizer book proposal contests.