Online Writing Contests
Is an online writing contest the Internet writer’s answer to the writing contests that you can find in trade magazines and in other places in the offline freelance world?
This type of contest, when based on a well known publication, can be of great benefit to the aspiring writer, but the same might not hold true online. In this article I will outline some of my experiences with online writing contests (all two of them).
First, though, I will make some points about what I think the pros of entering a writing contest online COULD be.
Online writing contest pros
Basically, I think that entering a writing contest online has the same potential benefits as entering a contest for a print trade magazine such as Reader’s Digest. That is to say, if you win, you are probably in not only for some big bucks but you also receive a lot of exposure, and for the freelancer good exposure is everything.
The other advantage (and probably even more so) is to have your piece critiqued by other writers. Now granted, as writers we are all harsh and – let’s face it – competitive people, but every so often there are some good truths to be gleaned from the comments other people make about your stories.
Potential online writing contest cons
Of course, as writers we are also protective when it comes to our work, and this can be a big problem when it comes to publishing our pieces, or handing them to someone else to publish, online.
As I stated above I have entered two different online writing contests. I didn’t go in with many expectations, so I wasn’t exactly disappointed, but they didn’t really help me get anywhere either.
In both, I sent in my pieces and then never heard from the sites again (and I also forgot the URLs for the sites too, and I would caution everyone else to write that down somewhere, in retrospect). Were they good pieces? Well I think one in particular was very good.
On the Internet, content equals success
If you’ve done any kind of writing for the Internet, you have probably heard that content is king (and if you haven’t heard that, you’re in luck, because I have written an article all about that great news for aspiring freelance writers).
Briefly, what this means is that the more pieces a site can put up, the more likely it is to garner attention from the search engines. Better rankings from the search engines means more visitors, more visitors means more appeal, and more appeal means more advertising potential. The more potential, the higher the dollar amounts advertisers are likely to pay a specific site.
So what does this mean for the writer who enters a contest? Well, you might be submitting a piece that will work very well for the site in question, but won’t provide you with any sort of benefit in return. Your work will be generating income for someone else, but you will still be eating Mac and Cheese in your parents’ kitchen.
Really, that is just the paranoid writer in me coming out, and I am sure most of us who write for a living have this inner demon screaming out.
Online Writing Contests - Are they useful?
On the other hand, there are probably a few of you reading this who have had some success when it comes to entering online writing contests. If so, we would really like to hear about it.
Or do you think writing contests are a waste of time?
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