Has anybody received their Claymore Award critique from Killer Nashville?

Wesley_S_Lewis

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Killer Nashville's Claymore Award competition for unpublished crime novels offers each entrant the option of having his or her 50-page entry critiqued by an "industry professional." In 2016, this optional critique cost $20 (on top of the entry fee). That was a heck of a deal; though, many entrants didn't receive their critiques until eight months after the entry deadline and four months after the winner was announced.

This year, Killer Nashville raised the critique fee to $100 but promised, "Critiques are guaranteed to writer within 60 days of receipt by Killer Nashville." As the entry deadline grew near, that 60-day guarantee was changed to a 90-day guarantee.

It has now been 129 days since I submitted my entry (along with the $40 entry fee and $100 critique fee), and I still haven't received a critique.

Is anybody else in the same situation? I've emailed the two addresses I have for Killer Nashville, but I haven't received a response.

When the critique fee was $20 ($0.40/page), I was willing to forgive delays, because the critique was an almost-free perk of entering the contest. Now, having paid $2/page (the same rate I would have paid for a critique from Writer's Digest or a number of other sources), I'm quite miffed that Killer Nashville has failed to meet their guaranteed delivery date. That guarantee was the only reason I didn't balk at the significantly increased critique fee.
 

heyjude

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No, but I would imagine that would be aggravating! Keep us posted? I hope it comes through soon!
 

WeaselFire

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Have you voiced this concern to Killer Nashville?

Jeff
 

Halee

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I requested a critique from the contest, as well. And like you I noticed that little 60-day to 90-day shift. I waited until 90 days had passed and then used the contact form on the website. (http://www.killernashville.com/machform/view.php?id=85557) I got a quick reply. Turns out they had sent the critique weeks before, but I didn't receive it. Wasn't in my spam folder, either. (I'm a querying writer. You best believe I check my spam folder constantly, lol.) Who knows where it went. The good news is, my critique was very thorough and professional. So here's hoping yours simply got lost in cyberspace as well, although apparently follow up emails have gotten lost too? That's weird. Fingers crossed you get your critique soon!
 

Wesley_S_Lewis

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I requested a critique from the contest, as well. And like you I noticed that little 60-day to 90-day shift. I waited until 90 days had passed and then used the contact form on the website. (http://www.killernashville.com/machform/view.php?id=85557) I got a quick reply. Turns out they had sent the critique weeks before, but I didn't receive it. Wasn't in my spam folder, either. (I'm a querying writer. You best believe I check my spam folder constantly, lol.) Who knows where it went. The good news is, my critique was very thorough and professional. So here's hoping yours simply got lost in cyberspace as well, although apparently follow up emails have gotten lost too? That's weird. Fingers crossed you get your critique soon!

Thanks for the info, Halee. Like you, I check my spam folder regularly but haven't seen anything. I'll try writing them from another email address and let them know that if they're trying to reach me, their emails aren't going through to my primary address for some reason.

EDITED TO ADD: Halee, I just checked your Twitter and saw that you're a Claymore FINALIST. Congrats!
 
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Halee

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Aww, thanks guys! Finaling is the first official good news I've had about my writing (after a mountain of rejections over the course of years), so it feels pretty fabulous. Wesley, I'd definitely give the contact form a shot. Sometimes emails get quarantined in spam but the website form seems to have greater odds of making it through. (Clearly I have a thorough understanding of the workings of cyberspace, lol.)
 

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So strange. I think they're either bad at communication or have a terrible email system. I emailed a question to the person who's supposed to be the contact for the finalists and haven't heard back either. (That was almost a week ago.) Maybe if worse comes to worse, you could try tweeting at Killer Nashville?
 

Halee

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I will indeed, wonderactivist! It'll be my first time at this one.
 

Halee

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I look forward to meeting you! I'm a member of Sisters in Crime, and there are a handful of other members attending, so hopefully I'll be able to introduce you to some more people, once I meet them, lol. (Look for the person with teal streaks in her hair. That'll be me. Feel free to say hi any time.)
 

Wesley_S_Lewis

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I look forward to meeting you! I'm a member of Sisters in Crime, and there are a handful of other members attending, so hopefully I'll be able to introduce you to some more people, once I meet them, lol. (Look for the person with teal streaks in her hair. That'll be me. Feel free to say hi any time.)

Teal streaks in your hair? You and my wife would get along.

As for my original quandary, I used PayPal's resolution center to contact Killer Nashville on Sunday. I still haven't received a reply.
 

Halee

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The teal streaks are a recent addition to my life but I decided it was time. It's my favorite color and it reminds me of the ocean (which is also where my books tend to be set). My husband and friends say it's very me, so that's good.

I'm sorry that you're still in the phantom zone with Killer Nashville! That's so weird. Maybe it's time to try tweeting at them. Or even at Clay Stafford himself. He seems to like being involved in things.
 

Wesley_S_Lewis

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The teal streaks are a recent addition to my life but I decided it was time. It's my favorite color and it reminds me of the ocean (which is also where my books tend to be set). My husband and friends say it's very me, so that's good.

I'm sorry that you're still in the phantom zone with Killer Nashville! That's so weird. Maybe it's time to try tweeting at them. Or even at Clay Stafford himself. He seems to like being involved in things.

I tweeted @KillerNashville and @ClayStafford on Tuesday night and received a refund of the $100 critique fee on Wednesday morning. The refund wasn't accompanied by an explanation or an apology, so I'm still a little miffed that I spent 4+ months waiting for a critique that's never going to arrive.
 

Halee

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I tweeted @KillerNashville and @ClayStafford on Tuesday night and received a refund of the $100 critique fee on Wednesday morning. The refund wasn't accompanied by an explanation or an apology, so I'm still a little miffed that I spent 4+ months waiting for a critique that's never going to arrive.

Oh whoa. That's really weird. I wonder if that's happened to anyone else? I'm sorry you've had to deal with that. :/
 

heyjude

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Ugh. That's poor customer service for sure. I'm sorry it happened, but glad you got your money back.
 

Wesley_S_Lewis

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Ugh. That's poor customer service for sure. I'm sorry it happened, but glad you got your money back.

I would rather have had the critique than a refund, but I couldn't ever get a response out of them, so I don't know if they simply forgot to do my critique or if they're running way behind schedule or what. C'est la vie.
 

Halee

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Hey! Sorry for the majorly delayed response. The conference was . . . a little chaotic in terms of planning. Apparently the lady who used be the admin and had organized the conference for the past ten years just left this year, so that probably explains it. I started to get the impression things might be messy weeks beforehand (I studied org management and used to be a management consultant, lol), so at least it didn't catch me off-guard. But I'm willing to admit it could be an anomaly. Rumor has it past years weren't like that.

But I met some cool people and learned a few things. I will say, it seemed like a good number of people were local and just there for the day time so the "networking" cocktail hours and whatnot seemed a little light on people. And by Sunday, most of the people were gone. (I attended a panel on Sunday that had five people in the audience.) In my experience, the best thing about conferences is usually the casual interactions between scheduled events so I wish it had been a bit more conducive to that.