I’ve just entered the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award! I wasn’t planning on doing this – I figured the entries would be so many, and the competition so fierce, that there was really no point. And when you first look at the rules it just seems like so much work …
It was my mum who convinced me to give it a try 
She’s entered her new novel, A Grave Inheritance, for the competition, and there are five different categories and three or four stages, and everyone who makes it through to the second round gets a prize – 2,000 prizes in total for this stage alone. This prize is only a review of your excerpt, but it’s still worthwhile as it costs nothing to enter. The top prizes for each category are lots of $$$$s – I don’t think I’ve got a chance, but it would be nice to make it through to the quarters, say.
I went off prizes a bit last year. Those who have been following the blog for some time might remember I used to have a competitions tab at the top of the blog and each month I would list top short story or novel competitions. But entering competitions takes so much time – writing short stories is fun, but as a novelist I had to ask myself if my time would be better spent writing, well, novels …
Last year I also made a list of novel competitions which were open to indie authors. Of course, the Amazon Breakthrough is the most well-known of these, but there are a few more around. I might dust off my list and update it – what do you think? Are readers of the blog interested in finding out more about competitions? Do you spend time on short stories? Do you have the time (or the inclination) to put together excerpts to required lengths or send off multiple copies of your novel? I’d be especially interested in hearing from anyone who has won, or come fairly high up in, such a competition – has it enhanced your writing career (and by that I mean got you more readers 
), or are there other benefits?
I might get back into writing short stories. I’d like to have some shorts to put on Kindle as freebies; they are great for enticing new readers. But first I must get on with the 1,000 other things I need to do … we can’t do everything at once!
I tried the Luke Bitmead but you can only enter that if you have not published a novel I think they can be great as long as they work for you and don’t hold you back and I guess as long as you go into them not expecting too much
Hi Paula,
I’ve always thought that was a great prize and a really touching background. How did you get on?
Jo x
I didn’t get past the first round
I threw my hat in the ring as well. Nothing to lose. That list would be useful…
Keep up the blogs too!
Good luck Matt, we’ll find out soon enough
Right, I’m back on the list. Watch this space …
An interesting post – as always, Jo. You raise a couple of key issues/questions. Break off from novels to write short stories? Enter competitions?
I like short stories and there’s something to be learnt in writing them that we can take back to novels, but they they take a HUGE amount of time. I think it’s a form that’s difficult to make work, and competitions are so subjective – besides which, in most of the big ones, the judge will never see your work as it goes through so much sifting along the way.
As to your question about whether success helps your writing career, as equated with more readers, I would say no. My novel has won two self-published awards and come second in Rubery, self-published and indie award, but I haven’t detected a huge rise in sales from any of those.
Your books are successful – don’t think you the accolade(?) of competitons!
Lindsay
Hi Lindsay,
You’re right – they do take a lot of time, don’t they? A disproportionate amount of time for the length of them and for the potential use, perhaps. But they are a great way to hone your writing skills. Do you generally just write short stories and keep a stock (so to speak) of them ready to submit to comps, or do you write each story specifically for a particular competition?
It’s interesting to hear that you don’t feel competition wins equate to more readers. (Note to blog readers: Lindsay’s first novel, Unravelling, really deserves to reach more readers! It was one of my favourite books of 2012 http://www.amazon.co.uk/Unravelling-ebook/dp/B005QCYR74/) But it is nice to be able to put the awards/wins on the cover or on your website, and I think it gives a writer more confidence to carry on.
Jo xxx
Thanks for the plug for Unravelling, Jo!
I tend to write short stories when I’ve got an idea without much thought of competitions initially. A ‘stock’ of stories would be a nice position to be in.
Yes, winning is confidence boosting, which is really important for writers.
I’ve managed to get several mistakes into the final bit of my original comment! It should read: ‘I don’t think you need the accolade of winning competitions’. Poor proofreading!
Lindsay
I haven’t ever won a competition, but as someone who’s ultimate aim is to become a novelist, writing short stories is a great way for me and other new writers to experiment with their style and genre and find their voice. It is almost like a writing exercise to warm you up for the novel. So I personallt would really appreciate you having a competition section of short story competitions and maybe even novel competitions.
That’s great to know, and thanks for commenting. I love the idea of short stories as a writing exercise – and you got me thinking about the idea of writing a short story about one of the characters in a novel, perhaps, as a way to get to know them better. These short stories could be used as off-shoots and released as free ebooks in their own right … Just a thought.
Yes, competition list coming back at the beginning of Feb!
Exactly. Sometimes I use competitions to try out a new character for a novel, and see if there is more scope for them, but as you said it’s also a great way to get to know the character better and put them in a situation they may not get into in the novel.
Can’t wait for the competition list.
My feelings about competitions/awards/prizes are very mixed. Some years ago I was asked to write about how being short-listed for awards had affected me as a writer. (At the time of writing I hadn’t yet won anything. In 2010 I did.)
I wrote, “I’ve had three novels published and two of them (EMOTIONAL GEOLOGY and STAR GAZING) have been short-listed for five awards, none of which I won. Book awards present wonderful PR opportunities that won’t necessarily be grasped by your publisher, so if you exploit its potential, a short-listing can make drastic inroads into your writing time. If you’re lucky enough to be short-listed alongside a famous author (in my case Cecelia Ahern for Romantic Novel of the Year in 2009) you’ll find publicity generates itself. It’s tougher if the award is for first novels or the short-list includes no celebrity authors. Don’t assume because you’re short-listed, there will be media coverage. STAR GAZING was short-listed for the UK’s first environmental book award, but there was no press coverage of the award and very little online.)
Being short-listed for awards didn’t boost my sales. There’s usually only a few weeks between the short-listing and the announcement of the winner and it’s difficult to organise author events at libraries and bookshops at such short notice. To maximise the benefits of being short-listed you have to know how to use the Internet to publicise your book using viral marketing – Facebook, Twitter and blogs.
Personally, I wish the whole process stopped at the short-list stage! Award ceremonies are stressful, especially if you’re not a party person. If you lose, your “failure” is very public and it doesn’t matter how many people say it was a wonderful achievement to be short-listed, when they read out someone else’s name, you feel like a loser. The more often this happens, the more distressing it can become.
Paradoxically, I found the accolade of STAR GAZING being short-listed twice in 2009 led to a big loss of self-confidence. I felt unable to write in the tired and disappointed aftermath of the award circus. I got very little writing done that year, partly because of the time and energy I invested in PR, but also because I lost focus. When you’re trying to immerse yourself in the fragile world of a new book, it’s distracting to promote another, one that you perhaps finished writing two years ago.
But the upside of being short-listed is that you’ll make contact with a lot of people who have read your book (in my opinion the best thing about being published.) A short-listing will bring you into contact with people who are really enthusiastic about books, especially yours. You’ll meet, perhaps befriend other short-listed authors, librarians, booksellers, readers and the indefatigable volunteers who organise the award. Online you might make contacts with book bloggers who will follow your career and keep your books in the public eye long after a winner is announced.
Being short-listed for an award is a time-consuming, exhausting and emotional business, but ultimately I’ve found it rewarding – not in terms of sales or my standing in the book world, but because of the people I met, people as passionate about my books as I am. It’s worth suffering a bit to have that exhilarating experience and to have your work acknowledged publicly as outstanding. And that’s what a short-listing means: your book stood out from the crowd. It still means that, even if you don’t win.”
What I couldn’t say when I wrote this was that after STAR GAZING was shortlisted for 2 awards, the publisher of that book dropped me. That gives you some indication of how much store publishers set by awards! After I was dropped, the book actually won an award, but those short-listings and the win didn’t help my agent find me a publisher over the next 2 years. I just didn’t have the sales track record which evidently trumps awards. So I went indie. (But that’s another & much happier story!)
I think there’s a lot of value in showcasing Short Stories. I really think that they will become increasingly popular in the coming years. We live in a very past-faced world; and while readers will still appreciate the novel, I think a lot of new readers will find the brevity of a short story appealing.
Speaking for myself as a new author, I’m always eager to hear about competitions
Keep up the good work!
Oooooo, exciting Jo! Good luck
Xx
Yes, I took a stab at the Amazon competition, in the hope of getting past the first round, not winning it
It wasn’t actually too much work – the first chapter (and a bit more I think) and I just used my blurb for the “pitch”.
Last year, I was spending some time on short stories as I thought they would help me build credibility. I’ve had a couple published but on the whole I do feel they’re a distraction from the novel-writing. I also feel that many journals are looking for a style that is more literary than mine… there’s a temptation to try to ‘be clever’ and it doesn’t feel as natural to me.
My suspicion is that a loyal group of readers is a bigger boost to an indie author than either contests or literary credits…
Wishing you lots of luck with this!
I do love that your mum is a writer as well. Having someone in your life who really understand the angst that we can go through must be great. Good luck to both of you!
Had the email list of who got through to the 2nd round today. I didnt. Have to confess to being disappointed as I have just topped 20K sales and had sixty 5* reviews. I thought, heck, the others must be very good. So, I looked. Of the first ten I looked at, nine were not listed on amazon uk. Only one was and it was a Canadian author, the book had just twelve reviews and was a massive 650 thousand below mine on the sales ratings. I looked further, it seems all the books in the 2nd round are on amazon in the US, and their sales positions are, mostly, way down. But, they have one thing in common, just a few reviews but 95% five stars. Some of the reviews appear very very similar in content?
Amazon will not have time to read submissions so my guess is selection is buy review standing, so anyone that used the ’5* reviews for sale’ system available in the U.S could get short-listed.
Not that I am bitter, just slightly wiser.
Hi Matt,
I didn’t get through either, hey ho. But two of my very good friends did – and one of them doesn’t have her book out for sale yet – so I’m going to try and have faith on the process for their sake. But I feel your pain! I’m in the same position as you, but at least we have all those lovely sales and lovely readers to console us
Jo
Ps, when I say ‘buy review’ that was a typo, honestly…