Short Story Contests: Painless Self-Promotion

Posted by bridgid on | October 28, 2009 | 1 Comment |

While looking for relatively painless methods of self-promotion, I landed upon short story contests. They fit my needs perfectly, and here’s why they can work for you too.

1. Less words = More better

Short story contests usually range from really short (100 words) to not so short (7000 words). Compared to the length of a novel (65,000 to 100,000+ words), short stories are like your favorite appetizers-just a taste of the wonderful things to come.

The less time you spend writing your short story, the more time you can spend working on your novel, querying for magazine articles, or chasing your small children/dogs/cats. And that pesky word limit forces you to say more with less, an excellent way to flex your fiction-writing muscles.

2. Cheapskates Unite!

For the frugal writers out there (okay, all of us), short stories are a less expensive method of working on our craft, and getting a little name recognition. Take, for example, these affordable contests:

• Writer’s Digest Annual Short Story Contest-$15
• Willow Springs Short Story Contest-$15
• Women on Writing Quarterly Short Story Contest-$10 ($20 for entry plus critique)

Sensing a trend?

Speaking of money, that leads me to reason number three for trying out short story contests.

4. Who loves free stuff?

With that small financial step comes the potential for great returns. The three contests mentioned above are perfect examples. Winning the Writer’s Digest contest wins you $3000 and publication in their magazine. Your measly $15 venture for submitting work to Willow Springs could earn you their $2000 prize, plus publication, of course. As for Women on Writing’s quarterly contest, the top twenty-five finalists are mentioned on their website, the top ten get prizes, and the winner gets $250.

5. Name Recognition or Bust

Even if you don’t need the money, you need the name recognition that publication brings. According to platform guru Christina Katz, “becoming visible is more crucial to landing a book deal than ever”. Why not choose a method of self-promotion that is fun, cheap, rewarding, and helps you improve your craft?

Do you have a short story contest that you would like to recommend? If so, we’d love to hear about it.

Share your favorites in the comment section, and you will be eternally rewarded by the goddess of literary pursuits (I choose Thalia, the comedic muse).

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