Morning. And thanks for bearing with us on this one.
Right, we've had a chat with Walker Books and this is where we've got to.
On the question of the prize money, we do think it's a pretty reasonable amount and comparable with the kind of fee you might expect (as a first-time author) a publisher to pay for a story of this length - especially when you consider that you'll have both Walker Books and Mumsnet behind you in terms of promotion and publicity.
As far as rights as concerned, Walker Books assure us that it's quite usual to pay a flat fee for this kind of story and retain the copyright in the text.
The waiver of moral rights is purely to cover the eventuality that a story might need some changes before it's published - but both we and Walker Books are extremely happy to identify the authors of the winning ten stories in the anthology. It was always our intention to do so.
The UK residency thing was stipulated, it turns out, purely to ensure that the winners would be able to make themselves available for promotion and publicity when the book is published.
However, we are willing to accept entries from overseas on the condition that those who enter from overseas are willing and able to be available in the UK (at their own expense) for promotion and publicity, should their story be selected as one of the winners.
Hope that clarifies things. Good luck to all of you!