Publishing Contests

In May 2008, a member of Book Publishers Northwest asked "Which contests make sense to enter? How much should I spend on contest entries? Are some contests more valuable than others to a publisher? Should we hold a contest?"

We sent these questions out to the PMA Affiliates group and received the following thoughtful responses. If you've had experiences good or bad with a publishing contest, let us know. E-mail your comments to bpnwnews@aol.com.

Contest Are Work - But Fun!

By contrast, Northern California Publishers & Authors (NCPA) DOES have an annual competition: http://www.norcalpa.org/ncpa-awards/2007-awards

Yes, it takes a bit of work, but our 108 members love it. We had 70+ attendees at the awards banquet on April 25th. The dinner was free to members and guests. Didn't hurt that our annual conference was the next day, as that brought in some of the conference speakers and out-of-town members.

The judges were a bit unrestrained this year (31 awards), but it made sense, given that there were many excellent entries. Winners, of course, try to get the maximum mileage out of the recognition, and we give them bunches of gold stickers to apply to their books.

Anyway, it's a legit contest. Tough judges, too.

Yours,
Barry

Barry Schoenborn, President
Northern California Publishers & Authors

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)