A few weeks ago I told you I was on a shortlist of eight for the Kobo-Silverwood Books-Berfort Open Day Writing Competition. I heard this week that I didn’t reach the final three. Congratulations to those who did: Phoebe Powell-Moore, Edward James and Sarah Channing Wright. Curiosity will definitely make me buy the winning novel when it’s published later this year.
It’s not all bad news though. As some of you may have seen on Facebook, I was awarded the Hwyl Stone (pictured) for Most Improved Speaker by Sutton Coldfield Speakers’ Club
. This was a nice confidence boost. The stone is supposed to have similar properties to the Blarney stone and was collected in Wales and made into a trophy by a former member.
Finally, to show I’ve no hard feelings against Kobo, here’s some interesting stuff from Kobo Writing Life:
- A useful blog post looking at Goal, Motivation and Conflict – the three essential things for every character. Without these it’s difficult to move the story forward.
- There’s also a good post on why you should enter competitions. Take a look at it if you’ve been dragging your feet lately and not submitting anything.
- Kobo are now running a Romantic Novel competition. It’s free to enter and the winner gets a publishing contract with Mills and Boon. Closing date July 14th 2015.
Kobo do seem to do more to help and motivate writers than Amazon KDP. Or have I just missed the Amazon stuff?
Sally Jenkins 
#1 by Linda Daunter on April 24, 2015 - 7:07 pm
Yes, that’s a disappointment, Sally, but making the shortlist was an achievement so submit your novel elsewhere. At least you won’t have any problems about making an acceptance speech when it is published!
#2 by Sally Jenkins on April 27, 2015 - 4:11 pm
Thanks for looking on the positive side, Linda!
#3 by crimewritingsolutions on April 25, 2015 - 7:47 pm
I wanted to commiserate you on not being in the top three in the writing competition but this idea was extinguished when I thought how well you’d done to get the stone so congratulations instead.
Also thanks for the Kobo posts which led me onto one of your previous posts about Kobo which has given me food for thought so once again, thank you Sally.
#4 by Sally Jenkins on April 27, 2015 - 4:12 pm
Glad you found the Kobo stuff useful, Kevin.
#5 by Patsy on May 2, 2015 - 12:00 pm
Congratulations on reaching the shortlist, bad luck on not getting to the final stage, congratulations on getting stoned. Er, that doesn’t sound quite right …
Kobo do seem to run quite a lot of different competitions and try to help writers. Amazon only seem interested in the kind of help which increases their profits.
#6 by Sally Jenkins on May 5, 2015 - 8:01 am
Thanks, Patsy. And I agree with your comments about Kobo helping writers, it’s just a shame that Amazon is still by far the largest e-book marketplace.
#7 by Patent Attorney on May 13, 2015 - 3:30 pm
With failure comes eventual success, and this post shows that! Congratulations on your award, I hope you can keep working on your writing!
#8 by Sally Jenkins on May 13, 2015 - 6:36 pm
Many thanks for the kind words!