Give us all your money...

One of the many dilemmas facing any new small publisher is how to get your name out there and generate submissions, from which you hope to find projects with real potential. It's a catch-22 situation - if you have no reputation to speak of, how can you expect writers to submit their query packages to you; but without those submissions, how are you going to build that reputation?

Many small publishers use competitions to generate submissions. You know the ones - advertised as the XYZ Publishing's Debut Novel Competition, or something similar. They are looking for previously unpublished writers and ask for the first several thousand words or first three chapters, and promise to launch the career of the winning entry. So, writers bundle their packages up, or attach them to emails, and off they go, accompanied by the entry fee.

That's right, entry fee. £10 usually does it, sometimes lower, sometimes higher.

This is where I have a problem. This kind of competition has potential, and we're considering it. But to charge a fee? I understand the so-called reasoning behind it - to cover administration etc. And some publishers might even suggest that charging a reasonable fee will weed out the serious writers from the fair weather scribblers.

I'm not convinced. If you charge a tenner a time, and generate, say, fifty entries, that's five hundred quid in your back pocket. A nice little earner, I guess. But it doesn't sit right with me.
If it is a 'writing competiton', with prizes etc, then entry fees go towards generating, or supplementing, the prize fund. No problem.

But what is this tenner actually for? Reading time? We're publishers. Reading submissions is part of the job. Administration? A few stamps for letters to tell all but one of the writers that they're out of luck? Most entries, I imagine, will come in by email these days.

So I'm still not sure what writers are forking out for. Maybe I'm missing something. Will we opt for such a competition? Very possibly. We'll keep you posted on this blog, and on the website, which, all being well, should be live by early to mid-October.

So, writers - have you entered these competitions run by publishers? Did you hand over any cash? Do you think we should charge an entry fee for a similar competition...? Okay, redundant question, perhaps. But I'd be interested to hear your thoughts.