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Comments on Are competitions worth it in order to get published?

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Are competitions worth it in order to get published?

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I have recently finished my 25,000 word novella and contacted some publishers and agents about a month ago. I have only heard back from a couple rejecting me but considering the format of my book as well as the fact that it is highly experimental and does not fall into any specific genre, I do not find it highly probable to get published as it is despite its quality.

I was thinking that a good way to get my name out there would be to take part in short story competitions but I am not sure if it is worth the time or if a better alternative would be finishing a longer book and trying to get that published first.

Your opinions on the subject are greatly appreciated and if you think that I should apply some different strategy all together I would love to hear that.

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This post was sourced from https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/48923. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.

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I have recently finished my 25,000 word novella and contacted some publishers and agents about a month ago. I have only heard back from a couple rejecting me but considering the format of my book as well as the fact that it is highly experimental and does not fall into any specific genre, I do not find it highly probable to get published as it is despite its quality.

If you are in contact with those agents/publishers, I'd advise trying to get feedback on why they rejected your book, instead of assuming that it's due it being "highly experimental despite its quality". Maybe you're overlooking something.

Anyway, you can always finish a longer book. But it's also a good moment to hone your editing skill, getting beta readers, and understand what your target audience should be. Maybe one of the problem of your book is that you didn't "pitch" it well enough.

If all of those options don't work out and you find that there is no more editing to be done on your 25000 words novel, joining competitions is surely better than leaving it in a folder.

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General comments (1 comment)
General comments
Mark Baker‭ wrote about 4 years ago · edited about 4 years ago

You will not succeed in getting agents and publishers to tell you why they rejected your MS. They reject hundreds every day. They don't have time to give reasons, nor is there any benefit to them to do so. There are ways to get critiques of your submission materials though, through conferences and webinars such as those put on by Writer's Digest.