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Q&A Are competitions worth it in order to get published?

A win in any contest in any field is valued in proportion to the quality of its entries. Winning a Pulitzer or an Nobel will do wonders for your career. Winning the Podunk County Fair Short Story C...

posted 4y ago by Mark Baker‭  ·  edited 4y ago by Mark Baker‭

Answer
#2: Post edited by user avatar Mark Baker‭ · 2020-02-15T13:51:46Z (about 4 years ago)
typos
  • A win in any contest in any field is valued in proportion to the quality of its entries. Winning a Pulitzer or an Nobel will do wonders for your career. Winning the Podunk County Fair Short Story Competition, not so much.
  • However, publishing is a business. They publish work that can sell. It is not a homogenous market. They publish work that can sell in many different niche markets. But they only serve niche markets that are large enough to offer some hope of revenue. The niche for highly experimental 25,000 word novellas is vanishingly small. Winning contest is not going to change that.
  • The method for attracting the attention of the publishing industry is as simple in conception as it is difficult in execution: write a commercially viable book.
  • A win in any contest in any field is valued in proportion to the quality of its entries. Winning a Pulitzer or an Nobel will do wonders for your career. Winning the Podunk County Fair Short Story Competition, not so much.
  • However, publishing is a business. They publish work that can sell. It is not a homogenous market. They publish work that can sell in many different niche markets. But they only serve niche markets that are large enough to offer some hope of revenue. The niche for highly experimental 25,000 word novellas is vanishingly small. Winning contests is not going to change that.
  • The method for attracting the attention of the publishing industry is as simple in conception as it is difficult in execution: write a commercially viable book.
#1: Initial revision by user avatar Mark Baker‭ · 2020-02-13T13:32:33Z (about 4 years ago) 
A win in any contest in any field is valued in proportion to the quality of its entries. Winning a Pulitzer or an Nobel will do wonders for your career. Winning the Podunk County Fair Short Story Competition, not so much. 

However, publishing is a business. They publish work that can sell. It is not a homogenous market. They publish work that can sell in many different niche markets. But they only serve niche markets that are large enough to offer some hope of revenue. The niche for highly experimental 25,000 word novellas is vanishingly small. Winning contest is not going to change that. 

The method for attracting the attention of the publishing industry is as simple in conception as it is difficult in execution: write a commercially viable book.