CheerReader Competition Autumn 2013
Posted by Sally Jenkins in Competitions, Short Story on August 26, 2013
I’ve had a note from Brian David asking me to give a shout-out for the latest CheerReader competition. So here it is:
Win yourself €100…
… just by writing the most amusing short story for the next CheerReader competition.
The closing date is midnight on September 30th .
Maximum story length is 1,500 words.
Theme – anything you like, so long as it makes us laugh.
Fee: €5 per story.
For the full list of rules and regulations, visit http://www.cheerreader.co.uk, where you can also read the winning entries and runners-up from the previous competitions to get some idea of the flavour.
So, join in, get writing and have fun.
CheerReader – “wagging the funny, making you smile”
And if you fancy a quick giggle I suggest you nip straight over to the CheerReader site – there are some very funny pictures of our favourite politicians with rather clever captions!
Amazon Reviews – Is This Ethical?
Posted by Sally Jenkins in Promotion, Self-publishing on August 18, 2013
I’ve gone on before about how important Amazon reviews are to authors. They help to ‘sell’ the book to potential readers and they may also help to push a book up the Amazon rankings and make it more visible to the buying public.
But getting reviews is a battle. It just doesn’t occur to many of us to bother writing one – even if we’ve really enjoyed the book. And to be honest, until I got into Kindle publishing it wouldn’t have occurred to me either.
Bearing all this in mind you’ll understand why an email I received this week got my immediate interest. The sender was suggesting that we do a ‘review swap’ and they included a link to their book on Amazon. I assumed that we would each read and then independently review the other’s book. That seemed acceptable – like ‘proper’ publishers sending out review copies in the hope of getting a positive response.
But further correspondence with the other author made it clear that I’d got it wrong. The idea was that we each write the other’s review ‘to speed the process up’ – meaning that I write a review of my own book for my contact to post under their name and vice versa.
I had a look at this person’s book on Amazon – they had many more reviews than me and their book appeared to be doing much better than mine. It seemed this author knew the secret of garnering reviews and thus growing sales!
I was sorely tempted to go ahead with the swap – perhaps lots of people are operating and making money like this? Why should I miss out?
But then I thought how would I feel if anyone discovered that I had written some of my own reviews?
I would be ashamed and unable to look them in the eye.
So I didn’t go ahead with the swap.
What would you have done?
Related articles
- First do no harm? (in book reviews…) (kevinbrennanbooks.wordpress.com)
- Can And Should You Ask For Reviews? (selfpubauthors.com)
Sally Quilford’s Birthday Giveaways Plus a Catch-up
Posted by Sally Jenkins in Books, Competitions, Self-publishing, Successes, Travel on August 11, 2013
I’m just back from walking the Cleveland Way (109 miles in 10 gloriously sunny days) and am now chasing my tail trying to catch up on everything! 
Just before I left I had an acceptance from My Weekly. It was for a story I subbed in October 2011 – so never think your story has fallen into a black hole if you get no response!
Also, those lovely people at Readers’ Favourite have reviewed my non-fiction book A Writer on Writing – Advice to Make You A Success. They’ve given it a whopping 5 stars (and I promise, no money changed hands!). Read the review here.
Finally, today is Sally Quilford’s 50th birthday and there are lots of exciting things happening on her blog, including e-book giveaways and a massive prize draw. I’ve joined in the fun and one of Sally’s giveaways is my e-book, Maxine’s Story – The Museum of Fractured Lives. It’s free for today only (11th August) and you can get it directly via Amazon or why not pop over to Sally’s blog and check out all the other goodies too? Her prize draw closes on Friday 16th August but many of the e-book freebies are only valid today.
By the way, if you’re looking for an escapist easy read, take a look at Carole Matthews’ new book, Calling Mrs Christmas. I received a review copy via Carole’s newsletter and it was perfect holiday reading. It took me from the misery of a suicide attempt in a young offenders’ institution to the splendour of Lapland’s famous Ice Hotel. And it was all tied together with a little bit of love …
Are Maternity Rights in the UK Fair?
Posted by Sally Jenkins in Lifestyle, Non-writing on July 28, 2013
How many of us dream of giving up the day job and staying at home to write full-time? Most of us, I bet.
But is our passion for the written word the only reason that we want to wave goodbye to regimented hours and the slippery ladder of promotion?
After reading a survey by Quality Solicitors I think there’s more to it than that – especially for women.
The survey focussed on maternity rights. Apparently 42% of women are nervous about telling their boss they’re pregnant and 39% believe that pregnancy is viewed negatively by employers.
I thought discrimination against women of child-bearing age ended years ago!
Back in the 1980s I experienced it as a graduate on the university milk-round when I was asked by one potential employer, “Do you think it’s worth educating women to degree level if they intend leaving work to have children?”
I argued that an educated mother would make sure her children were well-educated too and thus be a benefit to society.
It happened again a few years later when I tried to change jobs as a newly-wed, one company asked, “When do you intend having children?”
“Not for a long time,” I said but I didn’t get the job.
At an interview most of us are happy to ask about the benefits that come with a position, such as the holidays, pension etc. but, according to the Quality Solicitors’ survey, only 15.4% of women ask about maternity benefits at interview – presumably because they are worried about not getting the job if they indicate an interest in having children.
But, it’s not right to heap all the blame for any unfair treatment of pregnant women on employers.
The survey revealed that 10% of the women questioned had accepted a job knowing they were pregnant. Of these women, just under half had the job offer withdrawn or their employment terminated when the employer found out.
Do you think it’s fair to accept a job without indicating that you will require maternity leave just a few months down the line? A large company could probably manage such a prolonged absence but it would place a heavy burden on a small business.
I think a pregnant woman should be open about her condition or start job-hunting after the birth.
There have been huge improvements in maternity rights over the last twenty years plus the introduction of paternity benefits as well. For example, from 2015 parents will be jointly entitled to one year’s parental leave following the birth of a baby and this leave can be split between the mother and father.
Anyone thinking of starting a family can find out exactly what they’re entitled to by clicking here. The full Quality Solicitors’ survey results are here.
So, am I right, are easier domestic and childcare arrangements part of the attraction of being a full-time writer? And have you ever suffered in the workplace for being a woman of child-bearing age?
Fiction Addiction – Two Years On
Posted by Sally Jenkins in Resources, Short Story on July 23, 2013
I told you about the online writing group, Fiction Addiction, sometime ago.
Sharon Boothroyd
Over the last couple of years it’s turned into a useful support group for Womag writers. The founder, Sharon Boothroyd, has brought me up-to-date on its progress and I wanted to share with you what she had to say:
I set up Fiction Addiction in Feb 2011 because it was proving difficult for me to find honest opinions from other writers, and I couldn’t afford to pay for professional critiques all the time. My local writing group didn’t focus on short stories and on a recent creative writing course, the tutor didn’t know anything about the Womag market.
The idea behind my online writer’s circle is to ‘test’ your work on other Fiction Addiction members before subbing your work out to the magazines. We offer each other support, feedback, encouragement and motivation.
When I began Fiction Addiction in Feb 2011, I decided the first thing I needed to do was recruit members. Membership would be free.
I wrote an appeal and asked Kath if she would upload it on to her popular womagwriter’s blog. She did do, and Sally Jenkins very kindly featured me in her blog here in March 2011.
I was expecting one or two requests – but I was immensely pleased to be overwhelmed with people wanting to join! Some members were writers with lots of Womag sales, some were beginners and some were in-between. It’s still the same balance now, with 11 members.
My husband designed a website, and we put all the info there, including guidelines and a FAQ page. I wrote the website myself. To keep costs down, we decided to pick a free website.
As time passed, we’ve had a members leave and new members joining. Two years on, it is still lovely to read work and receive emails.
I do expect members to contribute, even if it’s once a month. Members can also drop out and join again.
We also look at competition entries and first chapters of novels.
Feedback has also been a problem for some. My advice is to be kind but honest, which I admit can be tricky! Of course, it’s entirely up to the writer what they do with feedback – they don’t have to use it.
We’ve had lots of successes when the writer has tweaked a story after receiving FA feedback, including me.
One of the first stories I sent round was an office girls story called The Game. After re-drafting, I sent it to PRIMA magazine earlier this year. It won their short story competition and was published in the May 2013 edition.
And very recently, (July 2013) a FA member has had a story accepted by Woman’s Weekly! She read our comments on her work and then adjusted her story before subbing.
We all feel very proud!
The Fiction Addiction website can be found at Http://fictionaddiction.biz.ly and Sharon has recently started a blog, click here to take a look.
So if you fancy a little bit of support with your writing, contact Sharon via the Fiction Addiction website and become part of the group’s success story!
Maxine’s Story – The Museum of Fractured Lives
Posted by Sally Jenkins in Promotion, Self-publishing, Successes on July 16, 2013
Maxine’s Story is the first in The Museum of Fractured Lives series.
The café in the Museum of Fractured Lives is a place for sharing secrets and exploring painful memories.
Several years ago, Maxine and Kaspar experienced the turbo-charged emotions of teenage romance. But the consequences of their relationship cast a long shadow into Maxine’s adulthood and now she is about to reveal something that she has never told a soul …
The Museum of Fractured Lives displays objects donated by people who have suffered a trauma in their lives. The objects are a symbol of that trauma. When accepting a donation, the museum employees try to obtain the full story behind the object. This is difficult because many of the donors are very emotional.
Each book in The Museum of Fractured Lives series tells the story of one donated object and the person who has given it.
This is a ‘flash’ novella of approximately 8,500 words and it is FREE today and tomorrow (16th and 17th July).
Click HERE for Amazon UK or HERE for Amazon.com. Or search for ASIN: B00DO0USNM
The first 3,000 words of Maxine’s Story were professionally critiqued as part of my annual subscription to Freelance Market News. Here are is an extract:
“A thoroughly compelling read, which flows effectively from start to finish. I don’t see how you could improve it.”
Please take advantage of the free offer and, if you enjoy it, as always, I’d be extremely grateful for an Amazon review – these reviews are like gold dust to authors.
Also, if there’s anyone out there who hasn’t read One Day For Me yet – that’s free at the moment too.
One Day For Me – Eight Award Winning Stories by Sally Jenkins
A selection of 8 short stories that have all won or been shortlisted in UK writing competitions.
Click HERE to obtain through Amazon.UK and HERE to obtain through Amazon.COM. Or search for ASIN: B00B4XCYJC on other Amazon sites.
Happy Reading (and reviewing)!
Write to Win! With Sue Moorcroft
Posted by Sally Jenkins in Competitions, Events, Short Story on July 9, 2013
The other week I attended Write to Win! at Mackworth library in Derby.
It was a workshop on winning short story competitions with the Writers’ Forum head judge, Sue Moorcroft. There were 12 of us (a sell-out apparently) around the table waiting to hear Sue’s pearls of wisdom and she didn’t disappoint.
I’ve tried to condense the whole day into the few bullet points listed below. Some of it you may have heard before but the fact that judges, like Sue, keep giving the same advice means that most of us aren’t following it – so take heed!
- Have a great title and first sentence
- Avoid putting flashback on the first page. The first page is an ‘access corridor’ to the rest of the story and flashback hampers this. If it must be there, put it in dialogue form to keep the story moving forward
- Bring in the conflict on the first page
- Begin at a point of change
- Do not start by setting the scene unless the setting is pivotal to the story
- Just include the essence of a setting and use senses other than sight
- Find your character first because plot springs from character
- Have as few characters as possible
- Always name your character – even if you are using first person viewpoint
- Do not ‘head hop’ – stay within the view-point character. This (and the point above) is a pet hate of Sue’s, so take note if you plan to enter a Writers’ Forum competition
- Don’t rush the ending but neither should the story carry on after the end
- Emotion is the writer’s friend and fundamental to a good story. What do you want your reader to feel?
Sue also cleared up a misconception I’d had about the Writers’ Forum competition. The guide word count for these competitions is wide (1,000 to 3,000 words) and I’d thought that the top three stories had to fit a certain space in the magazine. Therefore, if a 3,000 word story had won, Sue would have to choose shorter stories for the other places.
This is not the case!
The magazine is put together around Sue’s choice of stories, so stories of all lengths have an equal chance each month.
So there you have it – no excuse for not winning now!
Details of other courses run by Sue can be found on her blog.
Related articles
- Sue Moorcroft – Don’t Confuse ‘criticism’ with ‘critique’ (susankmann.com)
Short Story Competition Advice by Iain Pattison
Posted by Sally Jenkins in Authors, Books, Competitions, Short Story on July 2, 2013
Iain Pattison is a successful short story writer, frequent competition judge and a writing tutor.
He has kindly agreed to share some of his wisdom with us today. He is pleading for more humour and less heartbreak in your competition entries:
You know, sometimes I think judging short story competitions should come with a health warning. Not that it’s dangerous – well, not if you can run fast enough from those who haven’t won – but more because of the awful things it can do to your state of mind.
It’s always the same. Each time a big envelope of entries drops through my letter box I grin insanely knowing I’m in for a reading feast. But then, moments later, I remember that 95% of them will be stories of angst, despair, betrayal, abuse, regret, anger and disappointment and I gulp and wonder if my poor ragged nerves will stand the trauma.
It’s not that I’m a delicate flower or have a soulful, artistic disposition (I make Frankie Boyle look like Pollyanna on a particularly upbeat day), it’s just that no one can take hour after hour, page after page, tale after tale of gloom, doom, depravity and darkness without it leaving them so down in the dumps it would take a JCB to effect a rescue.
In some larger comps the pile of entries stand four feet high – that’s a tower of tears, a soaring spire of sorrow, a mountain with pique at the top! And the only thing that gets me through the relentless emotional pounding is the rare treasured tale that provides a chuckle.
For a few precious smile-filled minutes I escape the plight of characters being diagnosed with cancer, discovering their spouses are having affairs, fretting over putting elderly relatives into care homes or dealing with their drug/alcohol/Facebook addictions , and just have a good laugh. Bliss. Sheer bliss.
So it won’t come as a surprise that I always urge writers to go for humour if they want to stand out in comps. Funny stories don’t have to be trite, lacking in compassion or silly. They can make the same telling points about how people behave, about the madness of modern life, and reveal real truths about the human condition – but do it with a few welcome giggles along the way.
Nor do they need to gag-packed or slapstick. Some of the funniest stories I’ve ever judged have been deadpan all the way through until springing an unexpected and ironic twist.
Other adjudicators feel the same – we all call for comedy. And if you take a look at my eBook Is That A Pun In Your Pocket? 21 Short Stories To Tickle Your Fancy you’ll see that many of my satirical tales did indeed catch the eye of jaded judges.
So please – more funnies. It’ll boost your chances, make judges love you, and mean that The Samaritans can lift the bar they’ve put on my overwrought phone calls!
Many thanks to Iain for his advice! And if you want to see how Iain injects humour into his own stories do take a look at Is That A Pun In Your Pocket? 21 Short Stories To Tickle Your Fancy. I particularly liked Iain’s modernised version of A Christmas Carol and his take on Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory.
Amazon’s Kindle Cover Creator
Posted by Sally Jenkins in Computers & Technical, Resources, Self-publishing on June 25, 2013
In preparation for my next e-book release, I’ve been playing with Amazon’s Cover Creator.
This can be found within the Kindle Direct Publishing process, at the point where you would normally upload a cover that you’ve created elsewhere.
Designing with Cover Creator is far, far easier than trying to do it with GIMP or any other such design software (unless you happen to be an expert – which I am definitely not!).
There are only three steps:
- Choose Design – select an image from those available within Cover Creator or upload an image of your own.
There is a reasonable selection of images available and they are split into sections such as Animals, People, Architecture, Food and Drink etc. I found a picture which I felt was a reasonable likeness to the heroine in my tale. - Style and Edit – select the layout, colour scheme and font.
There are a limited number of each of these. The layout dictates whereabouts on the cover the title, subtitle and author name will appear. Colour scheme and font are self-explanatory. - Preview – see how your design will look in the Amazon store.
This is the only part of the process that caused me problems. When I tried to Preview I kept getting the message, ‘Cover Creator has encountered an error. We recommend you refresh your browser.’ So I contacted Amazon. They suggested that I use Firefox as my browser instead of Internet Explorer. This worked but first I had to delete everything I’d already done in Internet Explorer and start again.
At any point in the Cover Creator design process you can save the cover and come back to finish it later. And you can design in Cover Creator before your book is ready to be uploaded.
Inevitably there are some disadvantages to Cover Creator, the principle two being:
- The limited number of variables available (i.e. images, layouts, colour schemes etc.) However, I would guess that Cover Creator would become much more difficult to use were there to be an infinite choice. Just be prepared for someone to have a similar cover to yours!
- Covers created within Cover Creator cannot be used outside of Amazon. So if you intend selling on other platforms, source your cover elsewhere. Initially, my next book will be exclusive to Amazon so I’m not going to worry about this at the moment.
Here is a sneak preview of my proposed cover design. Any comments gratefully received!
To put my design in context – this book is intended to be the first in a series of stories (each around 8,000 words long), all of which will be set in The Museum of Fractured Lives. Each e-book will feature a different donor to the museum and tell the story of the object they are donating. Maxine is the heroine of the first book.
It was loosely inspired by The Museum of Broken Relationships in Zagreb which I told you about here. However, I should emphasise that everything in the book is totally fictional. I have never visited the museum.
‘A Writer on Writing’ – Free E-book and a Call for Submissions
Posted by Sally Jenkins in Markets, Promotion, Resources, Short Story on June 18, 2013
My non-fiction Kindle e-book ‘A Writer on Writing – Advice to Make You a Success’ is free on Amazon for the next five days (18th to 22nd June 2013).
Using my feature articles that have appeared in the UK writing press, I look at topics such as:
The self-discipline needed to write and stay focussed
A method of getting ideas
Tips on writing flash fiction
How to choose an educational course to help with your writing
Tips on writing anniversary articles
Tips on creating a backup of your work
How to decide on pseudonym
How to create a good first impression with an editor
Tips on starting a blog
The benefits of a writing buddy
How to write a novel in a month!
And remember, you don’t need a Kindle to read Kindle books. Amazon supply free software for your PC, laptop or other device here.
To get the book, click here for Amazon UK and here for Amazon.com. On other Amazon sites search for ASIN: B00C0GBRS6
Enjoy! (and if you do please leave a review on Amazon!)
Ride – Short Fiction About Bicycles is looking for submissions for its next short story anthology.
RIDE 3 will be published in print, as well as digital format.
The only requirement is that a bicycle or bicycle subculture must feature prominently in the story. Any genre, any gender, any length up to about 12,000 words, any setting, any country, any time period, any kind of cycling. The more diversity—of locations, cycling cultures, story genres—the better.
Payment ranges from $20 to $75 depending on the length of the story. Deadline is 31st August 2013.
The full details are here.
With thanks to Nick Daws for bringing this market to my attention via his newsletter.
Sally Jenkins 
