I received the results of a contest I entered back in June. I entered a scene from a manuscript I wrote for HQ Blaze (never sent it), and yeah, I didn't place, but my average score was 84.67.
Not great but not terrible. Here were the break downs -- 4 scores, lowest thrown out -- 95, 86, 73, and 64(!!!).
The two highest scores, you could tell they've read some Blazes. I felt like they "got me," and what was so funny is that one of the judges said, "heat this up a notch or two and make it erotic romance!" Ha ha, I've been thinking of doing that with this manuscript, so I found that fitting.
The 73 was a bit too picky about adverbs and thought the premise was completely unbelievable, which was fine cos she also admitted she doesn't read Blazes at all. The worst score actually gave me the most interesting comments. She didn't think the story was bad, just needed some work. And she had some interesting points that I won't go into here cos they're just too numerous! Plus, she wrote all over the entry so she really put a lot of time and energy into it, which I appreciate.
I don't plan on entering any more contests - I sent this one off the day before I submitted Release Me to Cobblestone, and I'm not saying I'm a bad ass or anything, but I don't want to enter contests because I just want to get to work on submitting actual manuscripts to publishers.
Besides, they cost too much and right now we're broke.
So do you find contests helpful or a waste of time? I know people have blogged about this before but I just wanted to get opinions.
And I do plan on revising and sending that Blaze hopeful to an erotic romance publisher. I hope to work on that near the end of the year.
On another note, my daughter went to her first day of preschool today. **Sniff.**
She was so excited, and did so good. I'm proud of her.
