Signs of the Times

     Recently as I read the RWR magazine, I noted that there were fewer contests aimed at new authors and not as many small conferences cheaper to attend than the biggies.  Maybe it is just my imagination as I never enter contests anymore and rarely go to a conference, but it made me reflect on the demise of our RWA Chapter in Baton Rouge.
     At one time, our small group supported a contest and did its darndest to give good advice and a nice plaque to the winner.  As our group dwindled, we no longer had enough people to do the judging and could not attract big names to judge either. These contests were also fundraisers for most chapters to bring in guest speakers and agents for the group. I don't see so many anymore.
  Some people left the group or never joined because they didn't want pay the nearly $100 to join RWA. As a librarian, I always joined my professional organizations and carried this over when I began to write. I think the Romance Writers of America do look out for their members and try to elevate the profession. Much of their advice pertains to any type of writing. However, new rules that a person must prove they are writing and that officers have to turn over every so many years does hurt the small groups. I admit a few of our members simply enjoyed the company. I had no problem with that, but as rules tightened, they left. The smaller the group got, the more the internal struggle to get new officers.
      Always too small to host a conference, we did put on a very nice readers' luncheon with a great speaker, awesome gift baskets, good food, and plenty of authors to meet.  I always had nice sales there and met terrific people.  When Baton Rouge suffered severe flooding, the luncheon was postponed indefinitely.  It never returned as the group disbanded as of Christmas that year. I've noticed that two other groups in the state no long run their lovely small conferences which I did enjoy attending. New Orleans still hosts some given by individual authors, but you need a large group to keep this going. The huge RWA conference and Romantic Times seem to be thriving, but the lesser lights have faded away.  I suspect the many who rushed to indie publishing found they don't make enough money to attend. I've got a small publisher, and I sure don't,  But, the expenses can be written off on your taxes if you are published. You just have to have the upfront money to attend. I've been once to both RWA and Romantic Times, awesome but huge and exhausting. I do miss the smaller, more intimate experience.
      So, am I right or am I wrong?  Are there indeed fewer contests (not talking about the commercial ones for the published which are basically popularity contests to draw people to a site) and less state level conferences? You tell me.

Of Awards, Contests & Reviews, again

Recently, I attended an authors' luncheon with two better known than me guest speakers. Both had recently won awards of some kind or another--and both acknowledged that hadn't made a bit of difference in their sales. One was for Indie books, and I think the public knows little about these awards and could care less. I also suspect the only awards that would have any meaning would be the Rita for romance in my case or one of the library awards such as the Newbery or Caldecott which can make careers.The Pulitzer would count, too, of course, but that is a different kind of writing altogether. Recently, I received an offer to pay a hefty fee to enter a Reader's Choice Award. No thanks. If I have learned one thing, these are primarily popularity contests, and will-known, very popular authors always win them--or people who have lots and lots of relatives to vote.

Similar offers have come for cover contests. I placed third in one of these that had a modest entry fee, but soon figured out that the best cover did not win and would not win. The winners were those who could spend all day voting for themselves as this contest had no rules against that or had lots and friends and family. A perfectly wonderful cover even better than mine got very few votes. The bit of free advertising that came as my award really didn't result in any sales. My friends and relatives already know about my books, though I did startle some folks at a recent class reunion who said, "You're writing what?" Yes, spicy romance novels. Mostly these contests exist to draw your band of merry followers to their web site and a mailing list.

Speaking of which, I received a notice that one of my books, Son of a Sinner, had been entered in a contest, but not by me. At first, I was a little flattered until I realized every book reviewed by that site had been entered in the contest. The contemporary romance category was huge. In order to go on to the next round, my book had to garner fifty more votes. I did try to get those votes until the people I begged to vote for me reported that they had to join the site to vote and the process to do that was laborious. This was just another case of a site building their mailing list. When I understood this, I ceased soliciting votes and didn't get my fifty to continue. I doubt winning would have made any difference. At least, this one was free.

Also, I have been bombarded lately by people offering to review my books on one hand and offering me an advertising package with another. Oh, how we all pine for reviews, so hard to get these days with so many books out there. I fell for this once.  I sent a review copy, but declined the $350 advertising package. Got a scathing review of a book that had otherwise gotten decent reviews. Smell a rat? Amazon did not post it, so I suspect they were also on to something.  So go with care when offered one of these deals. We are all desperate for reviews.  If you want to do something nice for an author, review one of her books on Amazon or GoodReads for Christmas.

I'm not saying any of the above are scams.  Business is business, and they want to sell advertising and draw people to their sites.  It's up to the writer if they want to participate or shell out the money and see what they get. If any of you know if any of these worked for you, please feel free to comment.

In parting, hi to Lisa and Sarah. Thanks for following my blog.

Contests Revisited

I know I've said it before, "No more writing contests for me." The best I ever did in five years of entering them was two second places and one third for Queen of the Mardi Gras Ball and Goals for a Sinner. None of those wins resulted in attracting an agent or big New York Press, but did give me a hint on which of my by then twelve novels to push forward to publication. Goals eventually started my career.  So why did I let myself be lured into entering a very prestigious contest open to both published and pre-published authors?--the ever present hope of being discovered by one of their star-studded final judges composed of major editors and agents.

How did I do?  About the same as I used to do though my scores were higher, proving I have learned some things over the past ten years. The results were based on a best score of 200.  My judges indicated they were a librarian (177), an RWA Pro (188)--I've been a PAN for four years myself--and an Other (190) whom I suspect must have editing experience considering her astute comments very similar to ones my own editor would have made.such as "You need to take out some of these hads."  Will do when I have the time.  My regular editor often does that for me. At least, it wasn't was. The judge giving me the highest score showed great generosity in marking the manuscript where she felt it needed improvement and making many comments. The middle judge commented on the score sheet. Hads didn't bother her. The low scorer appeared to find fault with my grammar and spelling which the other judges had given ten out of ten. I have no idea why, but she constantly marked every area lower than the other two mostly leaving no comments so I will forever wonder. In the end that eleven point difference sunk my chances of getting into the top six. All three indicated they would like to read the entire book and found it well-written, a sop to my frustrated soul.

What did I learn?  That there will always be a third judge with lots less enthusiasm for your work, probably a reflection of overall readers. That after all these years and fourteen books in print, I am still prone to get depressed because I cannot win a contest even though my scores were decent and the comments kind. I really don't know if Perfection will ever published because I no longer feel like submitting it. Now, I think it must be rewritten and that will have to be crammed between doing publicity on the new books coming out, Son of a Sinner and Courir de Mardi Gras, the reprint of Queen of the Mardi Gras Ball, and working on the manuscript of She's a Sinner. I've got plenty to keep me busy. Do I really need to try to launch a new Regency series without the aid of that agent I hoped to attract? Maybe some day.

Would I recommend entering contests? I think they serve a purpose, among them raising money for RWA chapters, but also if you get a good judge like the editor, the advice can be valuable, especially for novice writers.  But prepare for the let-down and having your feelings hurt because they didn't love your magnum opus. As for me, I am done with contests. I will not yield to temptation again. I think I've said this before, only this time I mean it.

Judging

I look at offering to judge writing contests as paying back now that I have two books published and two more under contract. Every year, I take on Golden Heart entries and always volunteer to read and grade the works submitted to my chapter, Heart of Louisiana. Because judging is very time consuming, I do limit myself to these two endeavors just in case anyone out there is lurking to find judges. In the name of honesty, I will confess I never won a contest and did enter many over a period of three years trying to get some kind of credibility that I could claim in a query. Closest I ever came was finaling twice with Goals for a Sinner and once with Queen of the Mardi Gras Ball. And I might add after Goals did so well, I entered it in the Golden Heart and got one beautiful perfect nine out of nine - and also a three at the very same time. Goals did turn out to be my entry into the publishing world and Queen will be out next year. I do try to judge fairly without personal predjudice and attempt to give good, sound advice.

That said, I will divulge my secret sin. I like seeing how far I have come from most contest entrants. I find myself mumbling, "Doesn't anyone know how to use a comma or colon anymore?" as I read. Jeez, would you get rid of all those "was-es", and dangling "ings"? Spell check is not to be trusted entirely. He didn't do everything rite. He did do everything right! In essence, I am revisiting every mistake I ever made when I started out and before I had professional editing to show me the way. One thing I have never written on any scoresheet is "You should leave this one under your bed", as a was once written on one of my entries, although I did have an entry several years ago that truly deserved it. The poorly written thing was so bad, I thought it might be a joke. Regardless, at the very end I left the author with these words, "You need to do a lot more work on this. Hone your craft. Don't give up." I hope the author found those encouraging words amid all the red ink I splashed over her pages.

As for me, I never enter contests anymore. I only judge them.