I Entered a Book Award Competition

As you can no doubt tell from my recent output, I don't have anything to do with my time, and I don't have a lot of options. While I did set up a TikTok profile, I've never been back, and I'm not sure I ever will. It's hard to put into words, but the place seems too "busy" and too scattered. I've been told that once you begin following people, the algorithm learns what to present to you, but the fact is, the only reason I joined was to promote my books, and I still have no idea how to create videos that don't feature me. Worse, I'm not interested enough to find out. I suspect that TikTok would sell my books just as effectively as all the other methods I've tried, which is to say, it's just another dead-end road.

I don't remember how I stumbled upon it, but I found an article about book competitions. It seems there are a lot of them, but once the scams (or, "money grabs") and the legitimate contests with too-high entry fees and the ones that don't fit at all (poetry, young writers, short stories) are weeded out, there really aren't that many at all. Oh, add to that the competitions in which the prize is a review. Ooh! Exciting!

An interesting fact is that the king (or queen or some kind of royalty) of writing competitions is the UK. It's practically swimming in them, whereas the US is pretty much a loser. Shame on the US! It's like it doesn't try to be Number One in anything anymore. And thus, the competition I entered, The Rubery Award, is naturally based in the UK. 

I'd never heard of it, but I'm hardly the hoity-toity type. I subsequently learned that the award is prestigious. And the grand prize is nothing to sneeze at (about $2,760 in US dollars).

Why did I enter? Again, because I have nothing to do. And sure, it cost $70.00 to enter, but I could also throw away seventy dollars on book promos and achieve the same benefit. And I just know those upper class literary giants are going to be wowed by my tale of a failed country music singer. (shrug) What else is my book good for, other than quixotic dreams?

I completely understand why writers are advised to start something new. It beats sitting around waiting for something to happen that likely never will, but I'm not writing anymore. It's not that I wouldn't, but my health and other life circumstances won't allow for it. So, I keep finding new distractions.

I just wish those new distractions didn't cost money.