EXACTLY WHAT IS THE POINT OF CONTESTS?

Here's a guest post by author Shelley Bradley:

I'm on a few email lists where the subject of unpublished manuscript contests has come up recently - usually with a chorus of groans and complaints. I managed to stop short of asking a few people if they wanted a little cheese to go with their whine. Really, this totally confuses me. I was a total contest sl-- um, diva before I published. I still maintain that one of my first books would never have sold if I hadn't gotten some wonderful plotting advice from a contest judge once upon a time. Now, I will grant you that I haven't entered contests like this since I sold my first book nearly 8 years ago...but I don't think things have changed that much. The basic premise is, you plunck down your money, send in part of your book and get some feedback. I think everyone is clear on that part. It's the details that seem to be causing issues.

Plunking down your money - I hear complaints that contests are expensive. Yes and no. If you paid a professional editor or copyeditor to look over your book, you might pay anywhere from $1-2 per page. If the contest you're entering allows you to submit 25 pages and costs you $25 to enter, it's not a bad deal because you're often getting 3 opinions, rather than just one. Could you enter 10 contests a month without going broke? Probably not. But to get the opinions of 3 people who know about the world of romance publishing, including published authors, and potentially a shot at agent or editor feedback, it's really a pretty good deal. To try to arrange for this much feedback on your own would cost you just as much money and lots more time, which in my opinion, is one of today's soft currencies.

Sending in your book - I hear complaints that contests are living in the stone age. Why copy and snail mail everything? Why can't things be electronically submitted? I understand this frustration, really. I HATE going to the post office. But on the flip side, would you want to be accepting attachments on your computer from perfect strangers? Even if you knew they were free of viruses, how would you know the file formats are compatible? Maybe you like Word 2003, but one of your judges is sticking by her tried and true WordPerfect 5.1? You laugh, but I know these people. PDF is a pretty universal format...except that not everyone has access to the software that will PDF a document. From a judge's perspective, without the software that allows you to actually write to a PDF (which most of us don't have), then you can't comment directly on the manuscript, which means more typing for the judge when they want to comment. That said, more and more contests are moving toward an electronic format by requiring certain file formats and making sure their coordinators have heavy-duty virus protection. Then it's a matter of finding judges who will read online. Personally, I'd rather. But I think I might be in the minority at this point. And it is judges who are volunteering their time. Which brings me to the last--and most vociferous--argument.

Get some feedback - Okay, don't expect to final every time. People will tell you that they don't, but then I hear entrants blaming judges because they didn't final. Hmmm. I'm not going to say I've never had a bad judge who was completely out in left field. I totally have. I'm not going to say they aren't still out there, because I'm sure they are. What I am going to say is this: Focus on the quality of the feedback, not the outcome. Yes, we'd all like to be winners all the time. Ain't going to happen. I learned (over time, mind you--I'm not a saint), to appreciate the valuable nuggets of information and suggestions far more than the actual contest results. Why? The info you can do something with--make your book better, stronger, faster, more solid, sexier--whatever. The contest win or placement...is just an ego stroke and another thing to put on a cover letter that an agent or editor may or may not care about. Those same people will be impressed with a wonderful book every time.

I understand that you don't consistently get fabulous feedback. Do you get it every time you submit a manuscript to an agent or editor? Um, no. You expect it because you've paid for feedback in a contest, but the honest truth is, you're paying for opinions, good, bad or ugly. It's your job to develop a thick enough skin to ask if there's some merit to the comment you've received, even if it hurts to ask. Now, I do know of a few cases where the judge was apparently sarcastic and derisive. There's no need for that--ever. If the contest coordinator did not catch that before sending the entry back to you, you need to let her know so they don't use that judge again. I even know people who have been given refunds. But if we're talking the garden variety "crappy" comment, I think you need to step back and look at publishing as a whole. Contests are a good way to see how you're doing against the competition...the same competition that might be on your dream editor's desk right beside you. If the judge pointed out character flaws or grammar issues or plot confusions, why get mad at her? You entered to get feedback, right? Look at the comments and use them to make a better book so that, next time you submit and find yourself next to your competition on an editor's desk, the answer is something more positive than a flat rejection. Do all the comments from judges always make sense? Nope. Then again, do all comments in a rejection letter make sense? I won't answer that, but you know. I looked at contests as the chance to see how I was doing against the people submitting at the same time as me and to see how many potential readers/agents/editors were "getting me."

Think of your judges as a random sample of the romance reading population. Some readers will love you and others won't. That's just how it goes. You can't please everyone. What I would do, however, is to look at the type of comments, how often I got them, what sort of personal "hot button" I might be hitting. Then I'd think about the likelihood of that hot button going off in a lot of judges or readers. Or agents and editors. Because if you think about it, a sampling of judges could be an awful like a random sampling of agents and editors. Some have been in the biz longer than others. Some like to really make a lot of personal comments, while others don't. Some are very clear and can concisely tell you what's not working about the book, while others might say things like, "This middle is bothering me" and be unable to clarify beyond that. It's YOUR job to decipher the comments as the judge/agent/editor sees them. And judges, like editors and agents, have their personal likes/dislikes/pet peeves. Instead of insisting that we completely weed them out of judging, which I think is unrealistic, maybe we should do our best to ask for impartiality and just accept that, like dating, you kiss a lot of frogs before you find your prince. The same is true for finding the right editor. Why not winning a contest?

Last, please remember that your judges are volunteering their time and can only give you their honest, heartfelt opinion. If they didn't like it, didn't read it as carefully as you'd like, didn't give you the kind/amount of feedback you wanted, remember they also don't have ESP. What they do have are busy lives, frequently juggling children, households, other careers, deadlines (sometimes more than one), plus other RWA volunteering, hobbies, church or school responsibilities. Personally, I have most of the above. I would say that one reason you may not be getting the amount and quality of feedback you want is because thank you notes have gone the way of the dinosaur. Who wants to put a lot of effort into something if you're never going to know that you helped or made some impact on the recipient? I know judges who have received horrifying hate mail and refused to ever judge again. Or authors who have been advised by agents not to judge because of potential lawsuits.

Contests are like anything else: You get out of them what you put into them. If you put unrealistic expectations into the mix, you're going to be disappointed every time. If you consider them a dry run for determining your publishing-readiness and take the feedback in the helpful spirit it was (usually) intended and focus less on winning, you'll be way ahead of the pack.