What about Contests?

It depends on the contest. Some are watched more carefully than others. Patrick Rothfuss got his agent through a chain of events that started with entering the Writers of the Future contest. I got an agent's interest once, based off a short story that won a minor contest at a writers' convention. Smaller regional or local contests may not mean as much, if there are no competent agents paying attention.

For memoir and literary fiction contests, pay close attention to your state or region's arts councils. Even though most are in budget free-fall, there might be some grants and contests still available. Look at local chapters of national writers' associations, and their conventions.

From what I've heard, memoirs are a hard sell unless they have a strong platform or hook.

Filigree

Michael Carr, our resident tame agent, has been discussing memoirs recently
http://absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=199944&page=29

I'm judging a contest for a regional convention at the moment. I don't know if I'll see anything that really grabs me, but I'm reading everything with the same level of interest as any of the partials I request.

I just wanted to add that I have seen people who entered contests and *did NOT win* later sell their work to big NY publishers. I have see those who did win and did not sell, also.

Huh? Do you mean a contest for, e.g. Best Self-Published Memoir? I don't see that as making any difference to a commercial publisher - chances are they won't be interested in your self-published book unless it has sold really, really well. Only enter a contest like that if you have already chosen self-publishing for other reasons, not because you think it will get you a Big 6 publisher.

There are two types of contests: the ones organized by writers organizations, and the ones organized by publishers.

Last year I participated to a bunch of the former. I diligently paid my fee and sent in first chapter and synopsis. I did make it finalist to one. But my overall experience: there is one major flaw about these contests, and I found out later as I got back my point summaries and critiques. Anybody can volunteer to be the first round judge. And either I got extremely unlucky, or I happened to have very ignorant people read my chapter. I never complained about it with the organizers because I know how it sounds: "Nondum matura est," said the fox, or in other words, I'm complaining because I didn't win. But it's not like that.

[Redacted--too many details. Suffice it to say, the critiques were poor and flaunted ignorance of grammar, rhetoric, vocabulary, and basic knowledge of writing.]

A final note on contests organized by publishers: if you do win I suspect you have very little leeway with the contract. I don't think you can negotiate any of the clauses. So my little piece of advise is: try hard to find an agent first. Only when you've exhausted all agents to query, then submit to one of the contests, suck it up through that first contract, and then call up an agent.

My two cents.

OneWriter said:

I had a judge take points off because my "metaphor" didn't have the word "like." She said, "Clouds are NOT cotton candy." A metaphor without the word like is called a similie.

Click to expand...

I hope this is a typo

A simile has "like" or "as" or some comparative word in it; a metaphor says the object is the thing it's compared to.

I agree, though - I really can't see the point in entering competitions. If you're good enough to win, you're good enough to get an agent and a contract you can negotiate.

Anne Lyle said:

I hope this is a typo

A simile has "like" or "as" or some comparative word in it; a metaphor says the object is the thing it's compared to.

I agree, though - I really can't see the point in entering competitions. If you're good enough to win, you're good enough to get an agent and a contract you can negotiate.

Click to expand...

Yes, I meant it the other way around, sorry... I'll go back and correct, thanks for pointing it out.
I get so revved up when I think about all the stupidity I got on my chapter, I go blind. Anyways, the judge's comment was in itself stupid -- I do know clouds are NOT cotton candy, it was a metaphor!! -- and so was taking points off for that. But that's just one example of the kind of crap I got in those critiques. I removed the particulars from my original post because I know I sound like an old sour lady who didn't get the prize, when I'm not old nor sour. Heck, I was even nominated finalist in one! I'm just flabbergasted at the prevailing ignorance and wish the organizers of these contests would do a better job at screening their supposed judges (first round judges--I know once you pass the first round, you get professionals like editors and agents).

Oh, and the bolding was not my point though. My point is that you can be as good as you want, but if you stumble on this kind of ignorance, you'll never pass the first round of judges. I now have an agent, but I haven't won any of those contests. Which doesn't make me any better or worse than anybody else, only wiser about NOT entering contests anymore.

Contests are fun, but you have to remember that you are just one entry in hundreds, maybe thousands. There might be several great stories, yours included, but most are probably not so great. Which one is chosen is abased on a bunch of factors we know nothing about. All we can do it write the best story ever and enter it.

I won first place in short story contests (one a few years ago, two about fifteen years ago), which was an honor all three times- I wrote the best stories I could, but I also think it was simply that those who judged liked my stories.

I took third in the Killer Nashville Writing Conference contest. It led directly to a contract with Five Star.

So color me a fan.

There are a tiny few contests out there that can make a huge difference if you win, place, or show. But most are completely meaningless, cost you money, do you no good, even if you win, and generally just take time away from what you should be doing.

I think, if you look at the cost versus the reward (prize money/publication/etc) it's pretty easy to tell which ones are worth entering. If you're paying a huge entry fee for a small prize... And most contests have no problem with simultaneous submissions, so if you want to submit the story to more than one contest or to magazines, etc, there's no problem.