Archive for category Competitions
Lancashire Authors’ Association Flash Fiction Competition, Guest Posts & Royalties
Posted by Sally Jenkins in Competitions, Self-publishing on April 9, 2013
Firstly, the Lancashire Authors’ Association has been in touch to tell me that they are holding another Flash Fiction Competition.
The winning entry will receive £250. Stories must be exactly 100 words, excluding the title.
Entry fee is £2 (or £1 if you happen to be a member of the Lancashire Authors’ Association) and entries can be submitted by post or email up to the closing date of June 30th 2013.
Rules are available here along with last year’s winning 100 word story.
Secondly, I’ve been getting around a bit recently in conjunction with my current obsession with e-publishing. You may have noticed me:
- On Womag’s blog describing how e-publishing is easier than you might think
- On the Writers’ Bureau blog talking about e-book covers
- On Nick Daws blog where I looked at the options when an e-book isn’t selling. I won this appearance on Nick’s blog via his blogging competition which I told you about a few weeks ago and the other part of my prize was a copy of his e-course Blogging for Writers.
Thirdly, I’ve received my very first Amazon royalty payment – 31p! It covers the US site for the last few days of January after the launch of One Day for Me. I was a bit surprised because I thought nothing was paid out until the royalties amounted to $10. Consequently, I haven’t yet got my US tax exemption sorted out – so they’ve taken 13p in tax, otherwise I would’ve had 44p! Take note, e-publishing is not a get rich quick scheme!
And the winner is …
Posted by Sally Jenkins in Competitions on February 18, 2013
There were 20 entries for the See Jane Write prize draw.
I asked this random number generator to pick a random number between 1 and 20.
It chose 20.
So the winner of the paperback copy of See Jane Write is Susannah Harrison!
Susannah says that her most notable achievement to date is winning the Reader’s Digest 100 word story competition last year – and that’s quite an achievement, I would say!
Congratulations to Susannah, and thanks to all of you who entered.
Two Competitions
Posted by Sally Jenkins in Competitions, Poetry, Short Story on February 14, 2013
Brian David has been in touch and asked me to tell you about the latest CheerReader short story competition.
First prize is 100 Euros. The winning story plus runners-up will be published on the CheerReader website.
1500 words maximum and the theme is ‘anything you like so long as it makes us laugh’.
Closing date is 31st March 2013 and there is an entry fee of 5 Euros.
The full rules are here and previous winning entries can be read here – and I’ve just noticed that Julia Thorley, who follows this blog, was ‘commended’ in the last CheerReader competition. Well done, Julia!
So, if you can write humour, pick up your pens now!
And here is a free competition for poets. The Jane Martin Poetry Prize is organised by Girton College, Cambridge.
First prize is £1000 plus ‘the opportunity to give a reading at a high-profile poetry event at which the prize will be awarded’.
Closing date is 15th March 2013. Entrants must be over 18 and live in the UK. Full details are here.
Also – don’t forget you’ve got until Sunday to enter my prize draw to win a copy of See Jane Write.
Book Giveaway – See Jane Write
Posted by Sally Jenkins in Competitions, Resources on February 10, 2013
I have a paperback copy of See Jane Write : A Girl’s Guide to Writing Chick Lit by Sarah Mlynowski and Farrin Jacobs, to give away.
Cover via Amazon
This is a very easy to read book from the US, and ideal if Chick Lit is your genre, or a genre you’d like to know more about. If you’d like to win this wonderful prize, all you have to do is leave a comment on this post indicating that you want to be put in the draw. You have until midnight on Saturday 16th February 2013. One comment will be chosen at random (so you don’t have to be witty or clever – but if you can be, all the more entertaining for the rest of us!). When I have made contact with the winner, I will announce her/his name on this blog.
BUT this is a competition for my email subscribers only. So, if you don’t already receive my blog posts via email, just stick your email address in the box on the right and follow the activation instructions in the email that you receive – then you can take part in the competition.
Sorry – prize can be sent to UK postal addresses only.
Good Luck!
“This is not love …”
Posted by Sally Jenkins in Competitions, Short Story, Successes on January 30, 2013
I hope no-one else had a bad head after the launch party. I knew I shouldn’t have finished that last bottle of Champagne after every one had gone. And I feel like celebrating all over again now because someone’s given me a really nice review on Amazon.
Anyway, basking in past glories won’t get the next book done. So how about a tight deadline to get the creative juices flowing?
Litro are running a free flash fiction competition. They want up to 1000 words from the prompt, “This is not love …”.
Entries should not have been previously published anywhere and the closing date is 7th Feb 2013 (entry is on-line). The winner will be announced on 14th February.
The winner and the two runners-up will have their stories published on the Litro website and the overall winner will receive three beautiful Clothbound Classics editions of Alice in Wonderland, Hard Times and Bleak House, supplied by Penguin.
Full details are here.
You’ve got 7 days – go for it!
A Blogging Competition to win £1,000
Posted by Sally Jenkins in Competitions, Non-fiction on January 15, 2013
Apologies to those of you who, like me, have your blogs registered with the Mumsnet Bloggers Network – because you’ve probably already seen this competition, but for those of you not in the know:
Moneysupermarket.com is running a blogging competition with a prize of £1,000. All you have to do is create a blog post about your dream holiday and include costings (excluding flights) – but keep the total cost under £1,000. Include a picture of your destination too. Mention the competition in your post and then email your entry to competitions@moneysupermarket.com. Closing date is 28th January 2013. Before you start have a look at the full details here.
And if you’re interested in registering your blog with Mumsnet have a look here. Basically, it’s a way of telling more people that your blog exists – and you don’t have to be a mum to join.
Bits and Pieces
Posted by Sally Jenkins in Competitions, Resources on January 5, 2013
I hope you’re all fully recovered from the festive season and ready to write again.
Here are a few bits and pieces that might be useful for the new year:
- ‘Don’t Break the Chain’ – nip over to Vikki Thompson’s blog to read about a great method of encouraging you to write every day. It involves using a chart to mark each day that you’ve written something. Hopefully, all these marks will form a long chain that you will do anything to avoid breaking. Follow the link on Vikki’s blog to down load the chart for free. And it doesn’t matter when you start because there are no dates on the chart. So no excuses – you can start any time of the year!
- Prima magazine have changed the word count for their monthly ‘Your Winning Story’ competition. It is now a maximum of 1000 words. The prize is still a Kobo eReader. Email your entries to yourwinningstory@hearst.co.uk and include your name, age, address, phone number and a recent photo. You’ll have to buy the mag. for the full rules plus the address for postal entries.
- Uniquely Dublin International Competition wants entries that ‘celebrate Dublin today’. There are categories for all the arts (music, animation etc) including the written word – and you only need to write 100 words about Dublin to be in with a chance of winning the category prize of 1,000 Euros or the overall prize of 10,000 Euros. Closing date is Jan 28th 2013 and entry is free. Full details are here.
And finally a couple of thank yous:
- I would like to thank Maria’s Book Blog and Jenny Schwartz for my prize of a Kindle copy of ‘Drawing Closer’ – Jenny’s contemporary romance. Maria regularly hosts author interviews and book giveaways, so if you want to win – pay her a visit.
- Last but certainly not least, I would like to thank Susan for nominating me for an Inspiring Blogger Award, which she did before Christmas. I’m supposed to tell you 7 things about me but I’m sure your eyes are glazing over by now so maybe I’ll leave that for another time. But do have a look at Susan’s blog – she’s a lovely lady.
The Bath Short Story Award & Erewash Flash Fiction Competition
Posted by Sally Jenkins in Competitions, Short Story on December 29, 2012
Here are a couple of competitions for you to mull over whilst you finish the Quality Streets and prepare for whatever 2013 might bring.
Help! I’m drowning in Quality Street! (Photo credit: nataliej)
- The Bath Short Story Award is a new international competition. The prizes are good – £500, £100 and £50 plus an additional £50 for a local winner. Stories can be on any theme and the maximum word count is 2,200. Entry fee is £5 and the closing date March 30th 2013. Enter by post or online but note that online entries must be in PDF format. Full rules are here.
- Erewash Writers’ Group are running a FREE flash fiction competition on the theme ‘Start’ – which seems appropriate as we approach the beginning of a new year. First Prize is publication on the Erewash Writers’ website, a copy of Dan Purdue’s book
‘Somewhere To Start From’ and one free entry to the Erewash Open Competition 2013. Second prize is one free entry to the Erewash Open Competition 2013. Word limit is 500 and the closing date is March 21st 2013.
The judge is author, Dan Purdue and he offers some advice on flash fiction on his blog.
Full competition details are here.
Pride and Prejudice
Posted by Sally Jenkins in Authors, Books, Competitions, Short Story on December 13, 2012
I’ve been reading Pride and Prejudice in preparation for entering the Writers’ News subscribers only January 2013 competition – the brief is ‘a story based on any of the characters or events in that famous novel – but set firmly in the 21st century’.
Detail of a C. E. Brock illustration for the 1895 edition of Jane Austen’s novel Pride and Prejudice (Chapter 3) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
It’s the first time I’ve read the book and it’s taken me some time to get into it. I suppose it’s the old-fashioned language and often long paragraphs used to get a point across. But now that I know the characters I’m quite engrossed – although I’ve no idea how I’m going to capture its essence in just 1,700 words of a contemporary story.
In Jane Austen’s world people seem to marry barely knowing each other, with background and financial position counting far more than the compatibility of the couple. They get little time alone together and the height of a woman’s ambitions (and those of her parents) is to make a good marriage. Equally, the less well-off males are looking for a bride of independent means to make up for their own financial shortcomings.
Of course, today relationships are conducted quite differently so I think I’ve got quite a brainstorming session to think up a modern-day equivalent story! There is a wealth of Pride and Prejudice fan fiction on the web such as here – so I’m going to have a trawl through and see how it’s done.
In case you’d missed it, 2013 is the bicentenary of the publication of Pride and Prejudice – Austen held her first printed copy of the book on 29 January 1813. Today Pride and Prejudice is The British Library’s ‘most adopted’ title, in a fund-raising campaign where supporters are encouraged to sponsor a book of their choice.
I wonder which of today’s books will still be popular in 2213? Any suggestions?
By the way if you know any young writers (or are one yourself), there are details of a Jane Austen writing competition here, open to school years 7 to 11.
-
You are currently browsing the archives for the Competitions category.
Sally Jenkins 