Archive for category Competitions
Streamlining and Focusing
Posted by Sally Jenkins in Competitions, Lifestyle, public speaking on May 10, 2024
I’m on a mission to focus my mind and become more productive. But there are hurdles. And the biggest hurdle is email. I’m not talking about personal emails from people I know or from those who want to invite me to speak to their group or who need to contact me personally for some other reason – I love getting those! I’m talking about all those email lists I (willingly!) signed up for which send me down a rabbit hole of clicking whenever they arrive in my inbox.
I’m immediately drawn to the prospect of a holiday in the sun, a designer handbag at a bargain price or the ‘last’ chance to secure £60 off a spa weekend experience. I can spend a good fifteen minutes drilling down into all the detail and then always decide the offer is not as good as the headline promised.
And I’m addicted to those emails filled with writing opportunities and competitions. There is always the feeling that this could be the one action I need to take to catapult me to stardom. So I read all the entry requirements, debate with myself over the entrance fee and then try to work out whether there is enough time to craft something new before the deadline. After wasting all that energy I either decide against entering or I write it on my ‘To Do’ list and don’t look at the list again until the closing date has passed.
If those offending emails never arrived in my inbox, think how much time I would save and how much more productive I could be!
So I am now in the process of unsubscribing as each time-wasting missive arrives. However, the ‘unsubscribe’ option is always buried somewhere near the bottom of the email and I have to try to scroll past all the enticing stuff to get there. I fear it won’t be a quick job.
Please tell me that I’m not the only one who has this problem?
In other news, my author talk, ‘Richard Osman and Me’, is now up and running. It’s gone down well with the community groups I’ve visited so far and some of them even bought books (which is always good). I talk about the real-life inspiration behind Little Museum of Hope, my roller coaster journey to traditional publication and about writing in general. There’s a photo of me in action at the bottom of this post (courtesy of Conrad Palmer).
And today I received a surprise parcel from my publisher ChocLit – a bright new mug to celebrate the bright new cover on Little Museum of Hope (and, if you’re quick, you might catch the Kindle edition still on offer at 99p).
Finally, if you’re passionate about libraries, here’s a competition for you (and, yes, it came from one of those pesky emails!): The Europe Challenge Writing Competition is an opportunity for fiction and non-fiction writers on the theme of ‘How a Library Changed My Life’. 3,000 words maximum and there are 5 prizes of 500 Euros plus the possibility of travelling to Amsterdam for an event and book launch in September 2024. Closing date is May 20, 2024 (so not long!)
A Birthday Relaunch and 2 Book Competitions
Posted by Sally Jenkins in Books, Competitions, Successes on April 30, 2024
Little Museum of Hope was published in April 2023. To celebrate its first birthday, Joffe Books have given it a fantastic new cover. Don’t you love the little cat staring into that beautiful, positive blue sky? 
I feel like that cat is a metaphor for all of us who are looking for a better future after a difficult time. And that is what Little Museum of Hope is all about: shedding reminders of broken relationships and tough times so that we can find renewed enthusiasm for life.
If you want to dip your toe into the Museum, the Kindle edition is currently only 99p! (I don’t know how long that offer will last).
By the way, that new cover matches very nicely with that of Waiting for a Bright New Future. I’m beginning to feel a bit like a brand!
And talking of books – I have a couple of free book-related competitions for you:
Marlborough LitFest is running its annual Love Books Competition. They want to hear about your favourite book, poem or play in 750 words or less. Explain what you love about your chosen read, highlighting key areas of interest, and why you think others should try it. Entry is free. The winner in each age group receives £300 and the runner-up receives £100. The closing date for entries is Friday 28 June 2024.
My publisher, Joffe Books, is running a competition to celebrate its tenth birthday. Tell them in no more than 50 words your favourite Joffe book of the last ten years. The best entry will win a year’s worth of books (in the form of a £500/$600 Amazon voucher)!
RULES
*The 50 words (well-expressed/heartfelt) can be about any book published by Joffe/Lume/Choc Lit in the last ten years.
*Entries must be a maximum of 50 words. And submitted by email to: readers@joffebooks.com. The email subject should be: “Win a year’s worth of reading” plus your name.
*Entries can be made between 23 April and 31 May.
Happy Reading!
Linktree, Amazon Book Recommendations and a Competition
Posted by Sally Jenkins in Competitions, Promotion, Resources, Short Story on March 26, 2024
Most writers have a presence on several social media sites as well as an Amazon page, a website and possibly other types of internet presence as well. We want to make ourselves easy to find and contact via whichever channel our readers prefer. However, listing all these links in a profile or biography looks messy, as well as using up valuable characters where there is a length limitation. 
To solve this problem I’ve recently started using Linktree. Linktree provides one link to insert into your bio, profile or social media post. When clicked, the link will take users to a list of all the ways to connect or contact you. To see a working example, click through to my Linktree: https://linktr.ee/sallysjenkins7. There are various price points offered by Linktree but the basic version (which I’m using) is free. If you’re fed up of listing your different internet connection points, it might be worth a try? One piece of advice if you do set it up: I found that the second half of the link (sallysjenkins7 in my case) needs to be first part of your email address.
One of the things included in my Linktree is my Amazon Author Page. Amazon now encourage authors to add book recommendations to their page. These recommendations can include your own books and those of other authors. Amazon says, “If you submit at least three or more new book recommendations, we will consider sending your recommendations to your followers through email and/or push notifications.” For an example of what these recommendations look like, click through to my page and scroll down. It’s then possible to scroll across the page to see all my recommendations. I’ve done six, three of mine and three from other authors.
The New Writers 1000-Word Short Story Competition 2024 is open for entries until April 30th 2024. There is a top prize of £1,000, a second prize of £300 and a third prize of £200. The entry fee is £10.00 and £1.00 from each entry goes to First Story (England’s leading creative writing charity for young people). There is a 1,000 word limit and stories can be on any theme. Remember to check the full terms and conditions before entering. Subscribers to the NewWriters.org.uk monthly newsletter gain access to exclusive free-to-enter micro, flash and poetry competitions (with cash prizes), book giveaways and the latest writing competition listings.
Finally, the cat illustrating this post, was spotted on a holiday to Madeira earlier this month. My daughter thinks he looks evil. What do you think?
All Change at Jenkins Towers …
Posted by Sally Jenkins in Competitions, Events, Lifestyle, Non-writing, public speaking on February 6, 2024
There’s been a bit of stuff going on around here lately, which is making my long held vision of becoming a fulltime writer hover on the horizon. This is NOT because I have suddenly hit the New York bestseller lists and the money is pouring in, although as I write, Kindle Direct Publishing for Absolute Beginners has an orange ‘bestseller’ flag in Amazon’s Electronic Publishing category – which may have disappeared by the time you read this.
119419479 © Monkey Business Images | Dreamstime.com
My current situation has arisen because of redundancy from my part-time job in IT and being at very high risk of losing my library position as well (due to council cuts). On top of this, the gearbox in my old car is making clunky noises and will cost more than the car is worth to replace. So, there’s been a lot to think about and not a lot of writing or blogging has been happening.
However, I have not been totally idle. I’ve been preparing an author talk based around the inspiration for Little Museum of Hope. The first outing for the talk is Friday 9th February at Mere Green library in Sutton Coldfield – I’m keeping my fingers crossed that it will be well received!
And on the evening of Friday 23rd February I will be taking part in a Women’s Fiction panel at the Museum of Cannock Chase, organised by the lovely Kim Nash. It’s the first time I’ve been involved in a panel event so it will be an interesting experience.
Moving away from my life, I’ve spotted an unusual ‘competition’ for historical fiction writers from Sapere Books. On their website are a selection of outlines for historical fiction series. Choose one of the briefs and write a synopsis and the first three chapters of the first book in the series. As the prize will be a contract for a five-book series, ideas and outlines for the next four books in the series are also welcomed. The competition appears to be open to all writers, published or unpublished but do check all the details. The closing date is 31st May 2024.
Finally, if you enjoy reviewing WWII sagas, take a look at Helen Yendall’s latest book on Netgalley. I think it might tempt you!
Three Free Opportunities for Writers
Posted by Sally Jenkins in Competitions, Events, Resources on January 16, 2024
Over the last couple of weeks I’ve come across a few free opportunities for writers.
119395801 © Pras Boonwong | Dreamstime.com
Firstly, Indie Novella is offering a nine week online writing course free to successful applicants. It starts on 30th January 2024 and the deadline for applications is 29th January 2024. It is a self-paced course with learning material and writing exercises posted each Tuesday. Participants will have until Sunday night to complete each short assignment and interact with other writers on each exercise. Participants will have access to the learning materials for the entire course and beyond. At the end of each week Indie Novella editors will provide their feedback on a handful of assignments. Applications can be made now via the Indie Novella website.
Secondly, author, Freya North, is running a series of Instagram Live chats with writers on a Wednesday at 1 pm. Seek Freya out on Instagram, where she is @freya_north_author and find out who she’s talking to next.
Thirdly, here is an opportunity for new writers that has been bouncing around social media for the last couple of weeks. The Peoples’ Friend magazine is offering one lucky writer a £10,000 writing bursary! Unfortunately for me, entrants must be amateur, unpublished writers.
To enter, submit a short story of up to 2,000 words in the genre of either romance, thriller or comedy. The closing date is Monday 5th February 2024.
As always, read all the terms and conditions before entering.
Finally (and unfortunately this is not free!), those interested in cracking the short story market might find the short story collection, Hit or Miss?, useful. It contains a range of short stories and invites the reader to play magazine editor and competition judge in order to work out which stories were successful in print or competition and which didn’t quite hit the mark.
Novel and Flash Fiction Writing Competitions!
Posted by Sally Jenkins in Books, Competitions on December 12, 2023
I’ve received an email from the lovely people at Farnham Literary Festival about their Farnham’s First Five Thousand competition for the first 5,000 words of a novel plus a 300-word synopsis. The novel does not have to be finished but it must be unpublished. Any theme or genre is allowed. There will be 5 shortlisted submissions, and a further 15 long-listed submissions.
First Prize is £100 + a Literary Critique, the runner up receives £75 and three shortlisted entries will receive £50. Closing date is Thursday 1st of February 2024 and there is a £5 entry fee.
Don’t forget to read all the terms and conditions!
The Welkin Mini Flash Fiction Prize is also currently running and entry is FREE! Closing date is 2nd January 2024. There is no set theme but entries must be no more than 100 words. Titles are not included in the word count. Prizes are in the form of vouchers redeemable against Matt Kendrick Editorial Services: 1st place £50 voucher, 2nd place £20 voucher, Highly commended £10 voucher.
Again, do check the terms and conditions.
In other news, I’m always very grateful for positive reviews on Amazon but I’m at a loss to know what I did to earn the 4* one for Little Museum of Hope, which reads, “Not read yet building my library.” However, I do feel honoured to be part of that library and I hope the reviewer feels the book is worth 4* when she/he eventually reads it!
Finally, if you’re still searching for stocking fillers or want a treat for yourself, Waiting for a Bright New Future is now available in paperback as well as being only 99p on Kindle.
A Competition, Kobo and NaNoWriMo
Posted by Sally Jenkins in Competitions, Computers & Technical, Resources, Self-publishing on November 9, 2023
I’m deeply down the NaNoWriMo rabbit hole this month, trying to churn out words that don’t resemble a plate of cold, congealed spaghetti. First drafts of a novel are never easy!
(For those of you outside the writing community, November is National Novel Writing Month when we attempt to write 50,000 words of a novel in the 30 days of November i.e. 1,700 every single day for 30 days.)
In other news, I was delighted to be invited by GeniusLink to contribute to their blog on the subject of Self-publishing on the Kobo Ebook Platform, based on my book Kobo Writing Life Publishing for Absolute Beginners. Kobo is big in the Canadian market and offers worthwhile opportunities to those authors who choose not to stay exclusive to Amazon.
This free-to-enter competition popped into my Inbox this week. I seem to remember something about it last year so it may be an annual thing. THE GLENCAIRN GLASS CRIME SHORT STORY COMPETITION is looking for crime stories of up to 2,000 words based on the theme ‘A Crime Story Set In Scotland’.
First prize is a lovely £1000 plus a couple of extras! Closing date is 31st December 2023.
Don’t forget to check all the details plus the terms and conditions before starting to create your story.
Finally, don’t forget the special preorder price of just 99p for my next novel, Waiting for a Bright New Future – to be published on December 5th by ChocLit (an imprint of Joffe Books). It’s a story about family, friends and facing your fears to find love after fifty.
Now I’m going back down that rabbit hole!
What I Learned From the Copyedit and Proofread (plus a poetry competition)
Posted by Sally Jenkins in Competitions, Poetry, Writing on October 17, 2023
My second novel for ChocLit (an imprint of Joffe Books) will be released into the big wide world in a few months. The cover design and marketing plan are underway. Structural edits, copyedit and proofreading have all been done – and each one of these stages has been an education.
On a ‘Happy Walk’ with my daughter’s dog, Sam.
I thought I was pretty good at grammar, punctuation etc. but I’ve realised: I’m not! For example:
- The school subject ‘geography’ starts with a small ‘g’ rather than a capital ‘G’.
- There is no hyphen in armpit (I have habit of putting hyphens where they’re not needed).
- The novel mentions the wedding of Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson. I was asked to change this to the ‘royal wedding’ to avoid referring to Andrew.
- Monetary values, such as £30, should be written in full, e.g., thirty pounds.
- “I’m alright.” Should be: “I’m all right.”
The points above are just a few of the corrections. There were a lot more!
Then there were the continuity mistakes which got picked up (thank goodness). For example, there is a cat in the story called Tibby and halfway through I had inadvertently changed its sex from female to male. I mention that one of the characters will have a birthday in a fortnight but a far greater timespan elapses before the birthday celebration takes place.
Needless to say, I am very grateful to all these professional people who have read the manuscript and stopped me from making a public fool of myself!
I’ll say a bit more about the book’s actual story when I have a front cover to show you. For now I’ll tell you that, like Little Museum of Hope, it falls into the ‘uplit’ genre of literature, i.e., by the end of it you will (should!) feel uplifted and positive.
If positively improving your mental wellbeing appeals to you, you might fancy entering this FREE poetry competition from Happiful magazine:
The magazine is looking for “poems that explore the topic of mental health and wellbeing in relatable, original, and empowering ways”. The winner will receive £100, and four shortlisted poets will receive a £25 National Book Token. All five poems will be published in Happiful. Closing date is Monday 20 November 2023. There are some useful tips on how to get started with poetry on the Happiful website.
Stay happy and positive everyone!
Competitions and Opportunities
Posted by Sally Jenkins in Competitions on September 22, 2023
A few writing competitions and opportunities have found their way into my inbox over the last week or so and they may be of interest to some of you:
First up, Readers’ Digest is once again running its 100 Word Story Competition. It’s free to enter and, as you might expect, stories must be exactly 100 words long. There is no specified theme. Closing date is January 5th 2024 and first prize is £1000.
The next one requires slightly more words. The Women’s Prize Trust, Audible, the Curtis Brown literary agency and Curtis Brown Creative are partners in the Discoveries writing development programme. It offers practical support and encouragement to aspiring female novelists and culminates with awarding the Discoveries Prize for an unpublished novel-in-progress. Submit the first 10,000 words of a novel with a synopsis of up to 1,000 words. Closing date is January 8th 2024.
Prototype Publishing is offering another development programme for writers who have not yet published a full length novel. There are eight places, with three reserved for writers from the north of England. To apply, you must submit a sample of work of up to 20 pages. This may be poetry, fiction, non-fiction or visual work. Details of your writing experience and interest in the programme are also requested. Closing date is 23rd October 2023.
Finally, Hannah Schofield of LBA Literary Agency is offering five romance writers from underrepresented backgrounds based in the UK, feedback on their novel extracts. Submissions close 17th October 2023 and all the details are here.
And remember, you’ve got to be in it to win it!
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