Why you should enter a writing competition

We look at the benefits of writing competitions to the indie author, and explain why YOU need to enter one

Have you ever asked yourself why you should enter writing competitions? This guide explores the first step: 'How do I find writing competitions?' and then answers the key question: 'Are writing competitions worth it?'

In fact you'll find they're a great way to beat writers’ block, but also to improve your writing skills by dipping into a new genre, taking a step back from your current WIP, and trying short story writing if you’re currently working on a novel. Plus you might open yourself up to a whole new reader market. And then there's the prestige of grabbing that writing prize: suddenly you become an award winning author.

As a writer, do you ever feel like a face in the crowd? A small face as a matter of fact - in a large crowd.

As part of the wonderful writing community, you're never alone. But with so many friends, it can be hard to stand out. And let's face it, if you want to be a successful writer, you're going to have to find a way to shine the light on your work.

For many aspiring authors, including indie authors, writing competitions are the answer.

Writing competitions are something of a cure-all for the writer's ailments, offering a tonic to flagging creativity as well as awarding that gleaming a badge of honour.

Think about it. You've reached that boggy midway point in your current novel. The characters, so vibrant in the early chapters, are starting to get on your nerves, and the plot has lost its bite and transformed into a sluggish, bloated thing that heaves itself along by its front feet.

Don't worry, it happens to the best of writers. But the best of writers have ways to overcome. And often as not, that means taking a step back. It means walking away and then returning from a different angle.

And there can be few better ways to distract yourself than entering a short story writing competition. Why? Because a writing competition was conceived by someone else's creativity. Under someone else's guidelines. That might entail a set word count. It might be a theme or genre. Whatever the rules and regulations, as a writer you have a set of rails on which to mount your skills, a track that will almost certainly diverge from your current work in progress. And that offers a chance to unleash your shackled creativity and send it off in a new direction.

For a writer, that's like taking a holiday.

You know the old saying: writers write. Which means when you take a holiday in the way normal people do, you still spend your time thinking about writing. Maybe you're even actually writing while lounging by the pool or sipping cocktails in the hotel bar. Even if you don't have a pen and pad at your disposal, the ideas are spinning away up there. There's not getting away from it: you're a writer and writing is what you do. Like it or not. So to really give your creativity a break, to whisk it up and away from your current work in progress, you have to point it somewhere else for a little while. And you know the other old saying? A change is as good as a rest.

So go ahead and give your creativity the chance to breathe. Nourish it, take it out to all night parties if you like. But get it away from that all-consuming future bestseller. If only so that you can return to it that much stronger.

Short story writing competitions are a particularly effective haven for the creative mind. Not to bang on about old sayings, but:

"So the writer who breeds more words than he needs, is making a chore for the reader who reads.” - Dr. Seuss.

Confining your creativity to a regulated short story competition will help you pare down your words, trim away the flabby bits and tone up your prose into something that grabs the reader's attention and holds it vice-like right to the last letter.

In short, writing competitions - and in particular short story competitions - are good practice.

Stand out

Did you know there are millions of independently published authors around the world right now, tapping out billions of words?

It is estimated that indie authors account for around a third of all e-books published in the largest English-language markets.

In 2019 Amazon's Kindle Unlimited platform paid out over a quarter of a billion dollars to indie authors.* Consider, for a moment, how many books and how many authors there must be to stack up such a huge pile of money. And the largest haunt of indie authors, Smashwords, is home to over 700,000 titles and more than 140,000 authors.

*Stats from selfpublishingadvice.org

That's just fraction of the indie authors out there currently working on the next masterpiece.

But if all this is making you feel a little bit small, fear not. Because while the competition is big, the market is even bigger.

Today almost 5 billion people around the world are online. That's a lot of consumers. More than enough to swallow up all the creative content written by authors like you and your many hundreds of thousands of friends. Of course, not all of those consumers are book readers, but they're all voraciously gobbling up online content and they're all looking for some form of escape.

BIBLIOPHONE is based in the UK, but for the sake of big markets, let's take a look at our friends across the pond. In the US, one in every five adults has read an e-book in the last year.* That's a figure that's remained relatively static over the last half-decade but still, that's a lot of people who want to read a book just like yours. (Actually audiobooks represent the only growing dynamic in that sector, up from 14% to 20% over the same five year period, but we're every so slightly biased towards that medium, ahem).

*Stats from pewresearch.org

So we have the writers, and we have the readers. The trick is bringing you both together.

For that you need exposure. A new audience for your written work.

Once you enter a writing competition, you join the club of all those who have entered the same one. In the modern era of social media, there's a hashtag for everything, including writing competitions. You can talk to fellow contestants, get a conversation going about your work. You've suddenly got new material for your blog. You've got something to get excited about. And when you're excited, your consumers are excited. You may not have published anything new, but you've got some new material out in the ether that you're proud of - that you can tell everyone about.

And then of course, you might win.

It's not about prize money as such. Yes a few hundred pounds, euros or dollars is great, but the buzz of being awarded something - anything - for your creativity is a feeling unsurpassed among writers. It is the recognition that your talents are enough. That you have what it takes, not just in your own mind but in someone else's, to make it. People beyond just friends and family believe in you in a wonderfully unbiased way.

Not only that, but you now have a badge of honour. You're not just an author anymore, but an award-winning author. You can put a prize badge on your  social media profile and on your author page. You've got a distinguishing feature that shines out and tells some of those 5 billion people: read this author.

Try our latest writing competition and have your work narrated by a screen star!

The best writing competitions expand your author platform. Here at BIBLIOPHONE, our competition winners have their work narrated by a professional voice actor. In our most recent short story competition, we asked five-times Harry Potter actress Katie Leung to voice the best story. Imagine having your very own words spoken by Harry Potter's first love interest. By an actress who's featured in Trainspotting 2, and the streaming series Roadkill, The Nest, White Dragon and more. Now that's got to pique your creativity. Not only that but we feature the winning story at the top of our homepage, together with your author bio and links, for at least a month.

With the recent surge in audiobook consumption, we feel like that's a string every aspiring author should have in their bow. Beyond the impressive statistics for the growth in the audiobook market, there's an element that everyone can relate to. Think about your friends and family. Relatives who perhaps would love to read your work but don't have the time. Maybe they work every waking hour, or maybe your best friend, who would just love to get to know your stories, is a parent to triplets and down-time is about as far away as the moon.

With an audiobook, those same busy people can listen to your words on the daily commute, or on the drive to the shops, or in bed when they're too tried to do anything with their eyes but shut them.

As author Julia Kate-Parnell, one of BIBLIOPHONE's competitions winners, says, "It was a lovely surprise to win the 1000 Words for INARA competition, especially so because the prize was a narration of my story by professional voice artist, Aria de Maris. The audio has been something I’ve been able to make use of when querying agents, and it was very special to listen to my story read aloud, and hear Aria bring the characters to life.

"I would very much recommend entering writing competitions; at the very least, they are a means of motivation to getting a story finished, they can give an enormous to boost your confidence and exposure should you be lucky enough to win, and reading/ listening to the short lists is a great way to discover new writing."

You can find our writing competitions just by visiting the BIBLIOPHONE homepage (and be sure to follow us on Twitter because that's where we announce all of our competitions). But what about writing competitions in general?

There are a wealth of indexes which list the most popular writing contests - just search Google and you won't go far wrong. At BIBLIOPHONE we use Almond Press to post external notices for our competitions. We're not affiliated with them but we like them because they feature at or near to the top of Google search results, and that makes them pretty cool. Not only that, but Almond Press lists a huge range of writing competitions all over the world. You can find and enter writing competitions for kids, writing competitions for teens, international writing competitions, poetry contests, competitions for flash fiction to short stories and novels - every length of story across the genre spectrum. Whatever kind of writer you are, whatever writer you aspire to be, you'll probably find a competition on Almond Press that fits the bill.

Beyond the search engines, you'll also find competitions on social media, especially Facebook.

How do you win writing competitions?

You've found a writing competition that's right up your street and your creative light bulb is blazing away. You're ready to start scribbling a story in your favourite notebook or commence tapping away in front of a white screen thrumming with potential. But how do you give yourself the best chance of winning?

For one thing, you need to be noticed.

The judges might be receiving hundreds, if not thousands, of entries. Your words need to reach out from the page and slap them in the face (in a nice way okay?) This isn't the time for a slow burner, for a story that wakes up with a yawn and a stretch and takes half the morning to get out of bed.

You need to grab the judges' attention from the word go. Or from whatever your first word is. But what does that actually mean?

If it's a literature competition, you need to think about clever language (use of - not big words lifted straight from the thesaurus) and undertones of plot and character. Something that makes the judge frown and smile all at the same time: they don't really understand why your protagonist just did that, or where they are, but they sure need to find out. It's about subtlety.

For all other writing competitions, plot usually wins the day. Of course we're not saying characterisation and scene setting should be left to fall by the wayside, but you'll need a storyline that picks up quickly and acts like a lure, constantly yanked just beyond the judge's bite until the final scene. Remember, that judge may have many, many entries to read through. They're a human being. They might be tired when they get to yours. Don't give them the chance to skim past it.

Remember to check the rules of the competition. Here at BIBLIOPHONE we're pretty easy going. We don't get too tetchy if someone makes a tiny mistake or two in their vocabulary (but we do like to see that the author has made an effort). And we don't usually set a genre, because as a platform we stand for freedom of creativity. Given that our ethos revolves around anyone being able to publish and anyone being able to listen, we feel it appropriate not to constrain your creativity with too many guidelines. Usually we just limit the stories to 1000 words - but we are strict on that. Otherwise, what's the point? So in our case, don't submit a story of 1003 words. Less is fine, more is unfortunately not permitted.

But that's us. Other competitions will have different stipulations. Pay attention to those. Write a fantasy story when the rules state 'political thriller' and you're just giving the judges an excuse to make it one less document to read. There may be rules around format too, or perhaps the main character has to complete a given task. It might be anything - and whatever it is, it's probably something to make the competition fun - but don't ignore it.

What about a title? Ever thought it's not important?

Think again, because that's the very first words a judge is going to read. Most judges will give every story its due attention, no matter what the title, but for the most popular writing competitions you need to stand out immediately. And that means a punchy title. 'A nice day in the park' is probably best avoided, even if it's ironic.

Once again though, read the rules. Because you night be able to get away with a little more creative wriggle room in some competitions:

"It's important to get the judge's attention straight away," says Jason Renton, another of our 1000 Words Heard winners, "but sometimes you can get away with exercising subtlety in your writing. With some writing contests you're invited to submit a brief blurb/plot outline for the story together with your entry. If the host has requested that, use it to your advantage: it's another way to entice the judge to read your story and as a result, means you don't have to dive right in with, 'I shot him on a Tuesday night' just because you want to be compelling from the first line."

Entering a writing competition is easy. You just do what you were designed to do: write. Winning takes a bit more thought, but with the right focus and a little determination, you can put yourself on the shortlist of any contest.

Make sure you read the rules. Make sure you edit your work so that it's neat and tidy and full of beautiful, focused, compelling prose. You won't win every competition you enter, but with a little consideration and planning, you're in with a great chance.

Our tips for winning writing competitions

1. Read and understand the rules
2. Write something original. It sounds obvious, but you'd be surprised how many people stick to the tried and tested story lines.
3. Think about how to get the judge's attention. Put yourself in his or her shoes and imagine reading tens or hundreds of stories.
4. Have a good title for your entry
5. Edit your work. Edit, edit, edit.
6. Have a friend or family member read your entry.
7. Make sure your character or characters are interesting people
8. A surprise ending is good. That doesn't have to mean a jaw-dropping twist (but it could). It just means you mustn't let your reader down.
9. Enter more than one writing competition! Seriously, if you're a good writer, you just need to play the odds.
10. Edit your work. Edit, edit, edit. (Yes, we know we're repeating ourselves but it's super important!)

1000 Words Heard 2021

While you're here...

Our current writing competition is 1000 Words Heard 2021 and is open until end of March 2021. As a writer, we want to give you a shot at something that truly benefits you. This is a chance to have your work narrated by a professional and a celebrity. It’s a way to break into a new market sector and not just with a little step, but to explode on the scene of audiobooks.

We're thrilled to have big-screen actress Katie Leung as guest narrator for our latest 1000 Words Heard writing competition, and equally thrilled to support a charity that's close to her heart: the Scottish Refugee Council, who work to support refugees from all over the world and help them build better lives for themselves.

We'd love you to enter your short story. All we ask is a £6/$6/€6 donation to the charity (we don't take a penny of this) and of course your best 1000 words (or less!)

Just imagine: your story, narrated by a famous acting talent, published as an audiobook right at the top of our homepage.

ENTER NOW