Forgive me, because math is not my strong suit, but I'm unclear as to how you came up with those numbers and that conclusion? I see what your idea is, but it seems to me there's another interpretation: if only 5-10% of fiction writers on the bestseller list have Creative Writing degrees, then your odds of hitting the list are better if you do not have that degree. And if only 0.1-0.5% of published writers in general have CW degrees, again, I'd see that degree as a hindrance rather than a help. Like I said, math isn't my subject at all. And personally I don't believe a degree makes a difference either way, but your numbers seem to me to be implying that it does make a difference--just not, in my interpretation of them, a positive one.
In the Western World, the majority of people are employed, but only a minority of people have degrees. Does that mean that having a degree has a negative impact on your employability? Not at all. Don't confuse proportion with population, and don't confuse publication with success.
A competition where the prize is publication in an anthology put out by a publisher with no previous publishing experience which may or may not be stocked on the shelves in bookstores (although I'd suggest it's more likely it will more likely be available to order) and where you only get the £200 quid prize money if your story is ranked first. If your story isn't ranked first then your stuck having your story in said anthology, which you hope will make some sales so you can earn pennies in royalties (and even then, the overall winner will still be earning more in royalties than you). What a wonderful opportunity for any creative writing course graduate.
We do have 'previous publishing experience', insofar as we have been publishing for over a year now. From our experience, we can admit that there is still a chance that bookstores may not stock the anthologies on their shelves, but this would be the case with any new as-yet incomplete publication, especially bearing in mind that there are still six months to go before the launch. And there are other, smaller cash prizes on offer; but when presenting our competition, we did so with the people would enter with the belief, or at the very least the faint ambition that they could win the top prize.
The contest is open to any person who is enrolled in any degree programme at any university or who has graduated from any university, world wide, so the odds are that the majority of authors who get included in this anthology will not be creative writing course graduates.
Actually, so far we've found the exact opposite. We still have yet to recieve our first submission from an author who isn't a student or graduate of a creative writing degree.
And the sales of an unthemed, multi-genre anthology containing a mix of short stories and novel excerpts are likely to be limited to the authors themselves, so I'm guessing any 'winners' will spend more on buying a copy of the anthology (since there's no mention of contributors' copies being offered) than they'd ever earn in royalties.
The Best & Brightest competition is not limited to, or biased towards, any specific fiction genres, but its 'students & graduates only' entry policy still provides a clear theme; and highlights a community which several studies have recognised as the most prolific reading group of all. And the demand for this kind of short-story anthology is established; proof-of-concept has already been achieved. At our last count, there were 79 universities in the UK with Creative Writing or other literary-oriented Student Societies; and the vast majority of these societies already produce annual short-story anthologies of their own. Typically, these are small print-runs of 50>100 copies, sold through a Student's Union shop on-campus, and sold out in the first month. Even if we were forced to cope with this ultimate worst-case scenario of every bookshop refusing to stock our anthologies, these figures would indicate that we can expect to sell a bare minimum of 5000 copies- not spectacular by any stretch of the imagination, but still enough to give each of our 100 contributing authors a higher royalties payout than the £200 top cash prize.
And that's only half the story. There is another community to whom the Best & Brightest anthologies will be of some interest- far smaller, but to most potential contributors, far more interesting. Some literary agents already target CW degrees in their scouting efforts; but only the largest, most prestigious agencies can afford to invest the time, effort and expense needed to do so. For several agents, the anthologies will offer a quick, easy and inexpensive way to focus their efforts in scouting new talent, encompassing both the cream-of-the-crop of new, unclaimed student authors, and the best of the graduate authors that either slipped through the net, or graduated from those institutions that didn't have any nets in place. In our press release prior to the anthologies' launch, many literary agencies will be contacted to highlight this.
Any rights we ask to publish the work of entrants will be limited to a one-year lease, any people who send extracts from longer works to us, and who have their work included in one of our anthologies, will still be allowed to publish their full piece elsewhere at the same time. So, as a competition, the Best & Brightest's cash prizes may not be all that impressive. However, the Best & Brightest anthologies present an exclusive opportunity to showcase your work and yourself, one which shouldn't be dismissed off-hand.
