Competitions and hairy beasties

I've not posted many competition links lately, but I do have excuses of sorts, and I have some free to enter competitions for you today.

The excuse first – We're travelling in our campervan in fairly remote Scottish locations, which means internet access isn't always available.

Also I've been attempting some promotion stuff for my new novel, Acting Like A Killer. I'm spectacularly bad at this, so if you can help at all with spreading the word, that will be very much appreciated. 

The paperback is already available from Amazon at £10, or can be ordered through bookshops and libraries. The ebook is on pre order at the early bird price of £1.99 and will be released at the end of November.

Now the competitions ...

This one from Hamer is for lyrical non-fiction of up to 500 words from UK writers who are over 40 and haven't had a book published by a trade publisher. Top prize is £250.

For this one you need to write a lot more words and include a serious crime. The prize is a $10,000 advance.

The Commonwealth short story prize offers regional winners £2,500 and £5,000 for the overall winner.