Tuesday, November 30, 2010

The Thing about contests, need to do a journal entry on Twilight

Well, I entered into the knight agency contest today. I had hopes that I would be able to be in the contest but the first 129 comments came in two mintues after seven 'o' clock so I ended up being screwed. I thought I had hope when Deirdre Knight said that they would randomly draw eight people who signed into the comment section between seven and seven-thirty (In eastern time, it's between eight and eight-thirty since New York is an hour ahead of where I live) but I just looked on their website and found out I was not one of the eight people selected for the contest.

Bummer.

Even though I'm sad that I wasn't chosen for this contest, this has taught me a very valuable leasson when it comes to publishing contests: If you really want to be considered for literary representation or for a publisher to read your work, do things the old fashioned way. Send in a query letter, wait about a month or two for a response (or more depending on the agency or publisher) and if it's not the results that you want, keep trying. So far, I've entered three contests that I somehow knew I was going to win. Those contests were:

YA novel Discovery Contest
Medical Fastrack contest (A contest sponsored by Harlequin medical romance team for first novels)
The knight Agency: Speed Dating with Deidre Knight

So far, I've lost in all three contests and don't plan on entering in any more contests...EVER. Like I said before, I'm going to do things the old fashioned way. At least I know I'll get some sort of response from that person at that time (Good or bad). Oh well, back to square one again. Despite what happened today, I'm still not giving up on my writing dreams.

Dominique