Contests

Saturday marked the deadline for two contests I was personally involved in. The first, I was using as a promotional tool for Unladylike Pursuits. In order to answer the question required to enter the contest, a person would have to read the excerpt posted on my website. My hope is that they’d like it so much they’d run out and buy the book. And if not, at least I could then add their email to my newsletter mailing list for updates on future releases. It’s a typical author ploy. And evidently I posted in some good places this time because I was impressed with the number of entries I received. Now the contest is officially over--I posted the winner on my website and notified her by email. She was very gracious and happy to have won. Hopefully my next contest will be targeted towards my next book… I need to pick up the pace a little bit.

The other contest was one I entered. I submitted the first thirty pages of my WIP, plus a synopsis I’ve written over the past week, to an RWA chapter-sponsored contest. I’m hoping to get some good, unbiased critiques that I can use to improve my manuscript. Certainly I also hope to win, but at this point I’m hoping I won’t be disqualified. After I printed all five copies of the 30 pages, I realized that the header was in Times New Roman font. Well…the contest rules expressly state that the manuscript and synopsis must be in Courier or Courier New font. So I didn’t know what to do. I changed the header to Courier New and it wrapped onto two header lines. I wasn’t sure if that would be disqualification. My husband suggested I use a smaller point size. Again, 12 pt. was specified, so deviating from that would be breaking the rules as well. I didn’t know what to do. So rather than print 175 pages again with no good fix, I left it and mailed it. I figure I’ll know within the month if I’m disqualified. I’m really hoping I’m not.