Sci/Fi Contests

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RhiannonKelley

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I have been high and low all over the net, and I have not been able to find a Sci/Fi Writing contest. Do these contests exist?
 

victoriastrauss

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If you enter a contest that offers book publication as the prize, be sure you have the option to refuse the contract if you win--some publishers that offer publication prizes are disguised vanity publishers, or have very nonstandard contracts, or don't do anything to market their books, or some other undesirable thing. Never commit to accept a contract you haven't read.

- Victoria
 

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azbikergirl said:
If the option to refuse is not stated in the contest rules, nor is the requirement to accept publication upon winning, is it safe to assume entrants have that option?
No. It's something you should clarify before entering. If pursuing clarification pisses off the people in charge of the contest, this tells you something about their professionalism.

Practically speaking, it's not likely that any of the kind of fly-by-night outfits whose contracts you'd want to avoid would be able to pursue you legally, even if the contest did require you to accept the contract. But they could hassle you to death, or threaten you with legal action--which isn't pleasant, even if you know the person making the threats won't follow through. It makes sense to clear this up at the outset.

- Victoria
 

whitehound

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The archebooks thingy asks for a 1-2 page Treatment plus a longer Synopsis, then refers you for guidance to a .pdf article which treats Treatment and Synopsis as synonymous. Anybody know what the difference between the two is?
 

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Yeah, that would make sense, thanks. Under Synopsis/Treatment the .pdf article The Art of the Book Proposal does say "In heavily character-driven stories, where plot is less predominant, I recommend giving a short paragraph on your major characters." but it doesn't distinguish this as a treatment.

Despite this (and despite taking as its example the sort of airport novel which I personally would, quite literally, find less interesting than watching paint dry) it's a good article with some useful points about attracting the publisher's eye without descending to hysterical hype. It's at

http://www.archebooks.com/AuthCor/The%20Art%20of%20the%20Book%20Proposal.pdf

- although personally I think the suggestion that one should redesign the whole structure of a book so it can have a cliffhanger at the end of chapter #3, just so you can send the publisher the first three chapters and leave him/her eager for more, is going too bloody far. [But I suppose somebody who writes novels about "a high-dollar bordello for extremely rich and powerful women" won't have anything *except* crude cliffhangers to keep the reader wanting more.]
 

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Yeah, it looks a bit fishy, and I suspect their books, although probably genuinely chosen, will be very badly distributed. But it's still quite a good article!
 

azbikergirl

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I can't help but wonder if they are a POD publisher, but they say they only accept agented submissions. I "know" someone who won their novel contest last year and was published in hard cover, as advertised. We were in the same crit group for a short time. I've been meaning to ask how winning publication via the contest has worked out for him, and would he do it again if he knew then what he knows now, but I haven't yet.
 

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What's POD?

As regards the contests, don't get your hopes up. I've just looked at about 20 of them and nearly all are links to competitions which are already finished - in some cases, finished a year ago.
 
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victoriastrauss

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azbikergirl said:
I can't help but wonder if they are a POD publisher, but they say they only accept agented submissions.
Given that there are so many bad agents, "agents only" doesn't mean much. I'm familiar with two of the agents ArcheBooks has worked with--neither has a track record of commercial sales, and both have a history of placing books with less-than-reputable publishers. One charges substantial fees.

- Victoria
 

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Looking at what's being said about them on the net, they seem to be genuine, but small and new. Their printing is good-quality, they select books on a proper editorial basis, and they are friendly, helpful and responsive: but they expect you to do all your own promotion.

The prize money is supposed to be free money on top of any royalties, but it's not that much: and since you'd have to pay for your own advertizing, and since a normal publisher's advance often works out a bit more than you would have got from straight royalties anyway, it's probably not worth going for this unless you have despaired of placing your book with a more mainstream outfit, or you have really good contacts at the book-wholesaler end of the process.
 
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