A mini-rant. Gee, coming on the heels of my bye-bye to Bebo post last week, I almost feel grouchy!
Okay, last year, I entered Penny’s first novella in the RITA. That was the only contest Penny entered. Penny did not final, but that’s not the source of my gripe.
This year, Penny has entered her second novella in the RITA. Now, because Penny’s novellas don’t actually release until the end of December, the January 2nd receipt date for the five copies of the book reaching RWA in Texas is impossible to meet. I can pre-order Penny’s novella anthologies on Canadian Amazon all I want, but I won’t receive them until mid-January. Argh. (P.S. for those who’d like the link to pre-ordering Penny’s second novella on American Amazon, here it is).
For the RITA, I’m willing to pester Penny’s publisher for five copies of the anthology and, like last year, perhaps even hassle her to mail them to RWA for me. I mean, it’s the RITAs—the Oscars of romance writing. Even though there’s a slim chance of an erotic novella finaling, entering is a chance Penny can’t pass up.
So, I receive the October Romance Writers’ Report (RWA’s monthly magazine, for those not in the know), and I’m thinking this year maybe I should enter Penny’s new novella in more than one contest. However, every contest listed in the October RWR has an entry receipt date of no later than January 15, 2009. Usually earlier. That’s fine and dandy if you receive copies of your books from your publisher no later than December 15th (especially when the author lives in Canada, as I do), but when you don’t get copies until mid-January for a book released the end of December, where on earth is the author supposed to find the time to enter these contests?
Hopefully the November RWR will list published contests with more reasonable entry receipt dates—like February 1st. Because I would love the chance to enter a couple of contests other than the RITA and see how Penny’s work stacks up (assuming the contests have novella categories—many don’t). However, I still feel like my freedom of choice of which contests to enter is sorely lacking. Not to mention ironic. My book is copyrighted and published in 2008, but because the release date is the end of December and I don’t physically have copies in my grubby little hands until mid-January, I can’t enter contests with an early January deadline. Yet I can’t enter Penny’s 2008-published novella in next year’s contests, either. Because then I’d need a 2009 copyright/publish date. I dunno, I think that’s wonky.
Good luck in the RITA, Cindy! I’m off contests right now (except for the American Final, lol). My last one, one of the judges gave me low marks because my hero used the “F bomb,” as she called it. He’s a songwriter! And the category was ST not Inspirational.
I’m not bitter, but it reminded me why I stopped entering contests. lol
Cindy – sorry about those deadlines. That really sucks. Hopefully the November RWR will hold better news 🙂 And good luck to Penny with the Ritas.
Edie – really? A judge marked you down because your contemp hero used the F word? Sheesh.
Don’t worry, Cindy, there are MANY MANY chapter contests that are held later in the year for 2008 releases. The restrictions of the RWR space-wise and advance notice-wise mean you don’t necessarily know about them ahead of time.
Aggravatingly, the web site hasn’t been updated and still lists August/September/October contests and conferences. I wonder what happened to their update person.
Edie, I can’t believe that about the markdown for the F word either. I couldn’t have that judge reading my WIP!
BEST OF LUCK with the American Title contest!!
Teresa, thanks for wishing Penny good luck. Penny has received two good reviews for her novella so far, one of which is STELLAR. The reviewer gave Penny’s Dec 08 novella 5.5 out of 5 stars, LOL.
I must do a promo post for Penny next week and link to those great reviews.
Hi Natalie,
I know there are a lot of contests that come out later in the year, but one I wanted to enter has a mid-January or sooner deadline. Really, what bothers me is my lack of choice because of the publication date of Penny’s novella. I know I’m not the only December author who is or has been affected by a late December release date, but it’s been very stressful around here lately, so I’m pouting.
You deserve to pout. I know it’s unfair and I don’t understand why they do it that way. Well, the RITA I understand, because they are fitting everything into the time constraints of National and the shipping/judging process. And maybe the other contests have the same constraints, like if they do their award ceremony there, too. But then, why can’t they have an off-calendar time frame? I thought, actually, that the RITA used to do that–have books entered with publication dates from November through October. Doesn’t that make more sense?
Well, to me that makes more sense, Natalie, except then you aren’t really dealing with the books from a specific year. Like you say, for the RITA, yes, I’ll do it (bug Penny’s publisher to supply books earlier than they normally do). But the other contests… I just saw one with an excellent reputation (so good PR for an author if they final or win) with a mid-ish December deadline for 2008 books. Basically a deadline like that takes December and maybe even November authors out of the running, depending where the author lives (seeing as it’s usually the author who submits the books).
The deadlines might also have to do with when the specific RWA chapters hold their conferences, if they have them. If they need to announce winners earlier in the ’09 year to coincide with their conference, then they need earlier deadlines. However, in that case, I myself think the “year” of publication should be shifted.
But that’s just me. 🙂
That all said, think of the money I’ll save NOT entering these early winter contests.