Using Literary Awards to Improve Your Marketing Image

If you have never written a book before, or you wrote a book and had it published, but the only sales you had were your own, then you can benefit from using the power of literary awards to increase your authorship standing in the world.
 

In the literary award bin, there are contest that are free to enter and those that cost to enter. According to Duotrope.com, there are over 4,800 literary magazines today.  A contest may be for a magazine or a book collection and may range from a very short story to a very long story.  When a person wins a contest, instant notoriety is created. 

You may be asked to do a television, radio, newspaper, or online interviews, and this is when it is important to be in the process of finishing or to have a book already published and for sale.  Any shout out you can give yourself will create instant sales of your book or books; especially if you can win an award that is well known.

Also, literary contest may be specific to your state, city, writing genre, gender, et cetera.  Don’t let this get you down because it may be to your benefit because it artificially creates a smaller constant pool.  You have to follow the money trail, which is usually with magazines.

All contest that have a website will also have a submission page that you can use to review the expected writing styles and to also read past winning stories.  You won’t win a contest if you don’t conform to what they are looking for.  You have to be flexible and adapt your style, but if you don’t want to win, don’t change a thing.

Popular Writing Contests

Literary Magazines

Glimmer Train – Publishes unsolicited stories and pays out over $50,000 to fiction writers.

The New Yorker – Accepts Fiction, poetry, Shouts & Murmurs, and newsbreaks.

Zoetrope - 2014 Short Fiction Contest opens July 1, 2014.

Boulevard – Short fiction contest (closed) and the Poetry contest for Emerging Poets closes on June 1, 2014.

Science Fiction

Strange Horizons - Speculative fiction, broadly defined, 5,000 to 9,000 words.  They pay 8 cents per word if accepted.

Asimov’s Science Fiction – Accepts character oriented short stories and poetry and pays accordingly.  Visit website for complete details. 

Other Contests

A listing of other contest can be found at Poets and WritersMagazine -

 

When it comes to being successful in the writing world, we have to get our names in the heads and our books in the hands of book reviewers and book editors.  Any additional effort that you can put fourth towards your writing career can only benefit you in the end.

References:

Writer’s Market

Poet’s and Writers Magazine

Yes, You Can Make Money Writing Fiction, by Patricia Fry

Forty-four Literary Magazines To Submit To, by

(book) Let’s Write A Short Story by Joe Bunting
Library of Congress Photo-stream - Flickr.com