On Money, Writing Contests, and Odd Embers
Writing contests have a bad reputation. By some, especially in mainstream publishing, they’re seen as money-laundering schemes, taking funds from hopeful writers and passing them up the chain to those who already have success.
And to be sure, some contests—especially those that charge a high fee, provide no prompts and no feedback, and take many hundreds or even thousands of entries—quality. But there are other contests, ones that help writers grow their craft with thoughtful feedback, foster community, and also provide a shot at winning some cash.
It was this latter kind of contest that finally got me to sit down and start writing about a year ago, and it’s the kind of contest that Odd Embers aims to be.
To that end, I want to spend a bit of time up front talking about finances. Because I haven’t yet run a contest (our first one launches on January 30), some of the details in this post are going to be a bit vague; I hope that, after running one or two of these, I can come back here and update with more specifics.
That said, my overall goal is that half of the money that comes in from entry fees goes back to the writers who’ve entered the contest. That once I’ve paid for the hosting of this website, processing fees, renumeration for judges, etc., I’ll have half the money left to distribute as prizes. (This will obviously become easier in future contests as things like annual website hosting gets paid off.)
This is why, for Ember’s First Contest, I’ve said that the prizes might increase—if we get enough entries to cover our costs, I plan to crank up the prize amounts and/or add a couple of additional honorable mention slots.
Do I think, based on some back-of-napkin math, that this is possible? I do! I reckon we need somewhere north of 100 entries to get us over the hump into being able to increase prize amounts. We just need enough folks take a chance on Ember and enter his first contest.