5 reasons why I’m wary of online literary contests

Oct 03 2007

At first glance, the 2 different writing contests sponsored by Amazon.com and Borders seemed like a good idea. That’s what I thought yesterday when I first read the article and wrote my original post (Writing contests gain steam online). But after doing some thinking, I’m just a little bit wary of these contests.

So instead of writing a long and drawn out manifesto against these literary contests, I’ll just make a list of a few problems I can think of. This list is in no particular order:

1. Why is Penguin co-sponsoring a literary contest to find an "unknown" author? I thought large publishing houses, such as Penguin, have mountains of submissions in their "slush pile" written by unknown authors. Maybe the slush pile ran dry. It just seems odd that they’re suddenly taking a different route to find another book to publish.

2. Allowing people to vote online is ripe for abuse. Anytime you let the online community vote for a winner, especially when there’s a large sum of money at stake, someone will try to take advantage of the system. Any author that submits their work can muster the help of friends to cast multiple votes. I’m not saying it will happen, and I hope it doesn’t, but it’s something that needs to be watched out for. Even "American Idol" wasn’t immune from those tech-savvy cheaters.

3. Do we really need another literary contest? It seems that literature in general is struggling so much that it’s being kept alive by contests such as these. Some literary magazines make a majority of their profit by sponsoring various contests that require submission fees. In a sense, these contests are creating "false demand" – demand that is only temporary and fleeting at best. Real demand will return only when reading becomes a viable alternative to television, movies, video games, and even the internet.

4. Amazon, Penguin, Borders and others can’t guarantee author success. Yes, they can certainly help, but the winner of these respective contests will still need to be somewhat marketing savvy and be prepared with another book to release, otherwise they risk becoming a one-hit wonder (and that’s if they’re lucky). Contests such as these tend to lure writers into a sense of false security: "If you win, you will succeed!" Granted, they don’t promise it directly, but the hype surrounding these contests certainly gives that impression. Also, how many bestselling authors do you know that got their start by winning a literary contest? Probably not very many.

5. How many submissions will high-profile contests like these attract? This is an important question because contests sponsored by such big-name companies will attract a lot of attention and in turn, they will receive many, many, many, many, many submissions! Yes, you do have a chance of winning, but it’s so small that you should plan on keeping your day job for a while. I don’t want to kill anyone’s enthusiasm here, and I’m sorry if I have, though it’s important to keep these things in perspective.

Let’s also remember that if you submit a novel to one of these contests, and you don’t win, it is not a direct reflection on the quality of your work. There’s no doubt that many good novels will be submitted and rejected here (right along with the bad), so don’t take it personally.

By no means am I trying to minimize these two contests, the people who submit their novels to them, or the eventual winners. I’m simply pointing out that sometimes it’s necessary to look past the hype at what’s really going on in the world of literature. Face it, fiction is struggling right now and I have little doubt this is a ploy by these booksellers to garner a little publicity by appearing sympathetic to the author.

It’ll be interesting to see how each contest turns out, and if the winning book is worthy of being a bestseller. If you plan on entering either of these contests, leave a comment and let us know your experience. Or, if you have entered literary contests before, give us a summary of your experience as well.

2 Responses

Hi Brad,
Your comments seem to be voicing what I’m struggling with myself. I’m a new author. I mean wet behind the ears, green on the nose, can’t distinguish left from right kind of new. I have never published a book. But, I now have written a story and I’m worried because of the state of the economy and the decline of the publishing world might mean I have less chance of achieving my dream.
Any thoughts?

Ed 12/4/2008 10:43 am
This is similar to what many places do with graphic design. They hold “contests” for people to sumbit their work and the winner gets some paltry prize. But what they don’t tell you is that all submissions become property of the company holding the content. The company gets tons of free designs, but the desingers don’t get much in return. This “devalues the potential of design and ultimately does a disservice to the client.:

There is an entire movement devoted to stopping these design contests: http://www.no-spec.com/

Susan 5/20/2009 8:52 am