Carolyn Haley
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Judging contests is a great thing to do it you’re a professional editor in independent publishing. It stretches and refines your observational and analytical skills, strengthens your psychological muscles, and makes reading fiction more interesting and meaningful. You can take everything you learn from judging back to your business and be more effective, to your own and your clients’ benefit. Sometimes you can even earn extra income.
To judge book contests, you need editorial and/or writing and/or deep reading experience to lay the groundwork. Judging fairly requires technical knowledge of storycraft, an understanding of the contemporary publishing industry, and the rudiments of design. You have to consider each book as an object within those frameworks, and evaluate it within the parameters of a given contest. Since every contest is different, you must adapt your viewpoint to context.
This combination parallels what indie editors have to do with every incoming manuscript to analyze the needs, benefits, and limitations of a job and the client.
Subjectivity versus objectivity
Contests leave little room for subjectivity. In fact, contest hosts do everything they can to minimize personal taste as a judging influence. All the contests I’ve judged have used a number system to evaluate the submissions, and each contest host chooses the parameters it cares about. Some might judge on only five criteria, others might choose 20, or anything in between. Each criterion comprises a percentage of the total, so a book might score high in story, middle in production quality, low in packaging and appropriateness for its genre. Or any combination. The total is what counts.
With a numerical system, there are inevitably ties between entries, so contests have systems to separate even-ranked contenders to define the winners. Tie-breaking might entail a second pass of numerical ranking with different judges, or a point emphasis on a specific criterion (e.g., whichever contender received the highest scoring for story or cover wins), or requiring judges to specify why they favored one book over the other. This last is where subjectivity finds a place — at that point, you’re talking about just the contenders for finalists, so you’re emphasizing the details instead of the broad brush.
The subjectivity versus objectivity aspect hooks back to indie editing, because editors must learn how to unplug, or at least intellectually manage, their personal tastes. Unlike in traditional publishing, where somebody else has decided that a book is publishable before it reaches an editor’s desk, an indie editor’s responsibility lies in helping authors prepare their books for an unknown publishing outcome.
Variables in judges
Most contests engage two or three judges per title. Their scores might be combined, so the highest total wins, or the scores might be averaged, or the low might be knocked out. Sometimes this information is given to judges; sometimes not. What matters is for an individual judge to evaluate each submission on its own merits and be consistent with their own yardsticks.
Big contests have many judges — it could be hundreds. Smaller contests, especially those for literary fiction, may have a well-known author(s) as judge(s) and promote them as a reason to enter the contest.
In the main, judges are anonymous and expected to remain so. They comprise editors, authors, reviewers, readers, agents, teachers, marketers, librarians — anyone with enough relevant background to assess the submitted content. There’s normally a core cadre serving a particular contest for years, with newbies replacing anyone cycling out. That’s how I found my point of entry.
Variables in contests
While some competitions allow both self-published and traditionally published authors to submit, it’s commonly one or the other. The famous and lucrative awards tend to be limited to traditionally published authors, whose titles are nominated by their publishers or by genre organizations whose members vote on the nominees. There are exceptions, though, such as — surprisingly — the Pulitzer Prize.
Generally, competitions for indie-published novels aren’t well known, but between the two arms of the industry, there are so many competitions that a potential judge is best off just searching the internet for “writing contests,” then narrowing it down to area of interest. The opportunities change every year.
The majority of contests are annual, and entries must fall within a calendar-year range based on their copyright date or their publication date. But yes, you guessed it: There are variables here, too. A few contests have a “legacy” category, where material published before the contest year is allowed. These entries are jumbled together versus the rest of the contest, which is divvied up by genre. Thus, if you judge a legacy group, you can get the weirdest combination of fiction. I liken it to a big box of chocolate bonbons. You stick your hand in the box and pull something out with no idea what will be inside when you bite.
This mix reflects what kinds of books an indie editor might encounter. Each editing project will present something different, something unexpected, some variable X that requires it to be considered on its own merits.
Even more variables
Along with contests for complete novels, there are contests for opening sentence or opening page or first chapter plus a synopsis. Some are for ebook only; some for print only; others allow submissions in multiple formats. Contests may be narrow (one genre) or wide (multi genre) or separated by length (novel, novella, short story, flash fiction). They might be restricted to unpublished authors or also open to published authors. The limitation could be authors who are unagented, or pre-publication books instead of post-publication books. Larger contests might include everything between the poles of novels and nonfiction: poetry, short stories, memoir, children’s books.
Contest prizes range from cash to badges, stickers, and certificates; special reviews and consults with agents; free admission to conferences with pitching opportunities; special promotion packages. A highly desired prize is feedback. Some authors will pay big entry fees just for that. In those cases, judges must be prepared to comment as tactfully as a professional editor or reviewer.
I know of one contest that is judged solely by readers from the public, who are required to provide feedback for every contestant. But that adds months to the waiting period. Very few contests for book-length work announce results in less than a season. On average, the process takes three or more months. Throughout the timeline, from submission start date to post–award announcement, judges must maintain their anonymity and hold on to all the books they received for judging.
Finding a suitable contest
A prospective judge should have an idea of what kind of material they want to work with, and how much time they have available. It’s common to be given 10 to 20 books over the course of a few months. The fewest I ever had was five; the most, 41 — but that’s because I was judging two contests simultaneously.
While not all contests require that you read every page of every submission, you still need to read enough to evaluate the entry against the contest criteria. In some cases, you must write up your results, or enter them into an online form, and/or make photocopies or scans of your scoring sheets.
The time to read and process entries can interfere with your work schedule or personal life, adding up to a part-time job on top of what you already do.
Entering the judging field can happen by referral, learning through a contest website that judges are wanted, or reaching out to the coordinator to let them know you’re interested and waiting for a turnover opportunity. Regardless, do your homework first. Read everything on a given contest’s website. While those are usually oriented toward the submitting authors, prospective judges can get an idea what they’re in for by studying author submission requirements, category definitions, past winners, and the organization’s purpose for providing the contest. Look for people’s reviews of the experience, too. Any questions, contact the contest coordinator. If they’re not prompt, friendly, and helpful, take that as a cue to look elsewhere.
The plus side
Judging solely for money isn’t realistic — even judging a lot won’t generate enough income to make a living at it. Maybe way up there at the top, the honorariums have impact; but I haven’t found that information yet and expect I never will. Judging for the myriad indie-author competitions is volunteer more often than not, and any paychecks you get qualify as pin money.
But there are benefits. Not only can judging improve your editing skills, enrich your knowledge of writing and publishing, broaden your résumé, put some cash in your pocket, and widen your professional network; there’s also personal gratification to be had. The biggest plus for me is the surprise and delight of discovery.
On one hand, you need a high tolerance for substandard material — many entries equate the “slush pile” of yore, and there’s usually more of that than the good stuff. On the other hand, there’s always the moment that panning for gold suddenly reveals a gleaming nugget amid all the silt and gravel. My favorite literary experience is opening a book I have no expectations of liking, then being drawn into it despite my resistance, unable to put it down. When the story also hits all the bingos on cover, interior, editorial, and genre, it’s exciting to be able to honor that author and their work.
I also enjoy a little private competition … hoping my choices agree with the other judges’ choices and earn gold, silver, bronze, or honorable mention. Here again, it varies per contest. As I’ve accumulated judging experience, my choices more often align with the winners. That makes me feel like a winner, too!
Judging as continuing education
As an indie editor, you probably won’t be rating your prospective clients’ material on a numeric scale, but some sort of personal, internal scale can help you decide which jobs to accept and how to handle them.
In both editing and judging, the majority of material that comes to you won’t be what you relish. If you can’t handle that, don’t judge contests. For that matter, don’t be an editor for indie authors. How you manage your feelings is crucial for both activities. On the editing side, you see novels before they’re final. On the judging side, you see them after the authors present their work to the world. That’s a big difference in perspective, even though you’re looking through the same lens.
For this reason, I consider judging to be continuing professional education for editing — with the bonus that you don’t have to come up with tuition for courses. Rather, for an investment of time, you can gain invaluable experience and, if you choose your contests carefully, additional income. In the process, you can gain exposure to material beyond what might ordinarily cross your desk, qualifying you to expand your horizons.
“Thinking Fiction” columnist Carolyn Haley is an award-winning novelist who lives and breathes novels. Although specializing in fiction, she edits across the publishing spectrum — fiction and nonfiction, corporate and indie — and is the author of three novels and a nonfiction book. She has been editing professionally since 1997 and has had her own editorial services company, DocuMania, since 2005. She also reviews for the New York Journal of Books, and has presented about editing fiction at Communication Central conferences. She can be reached at dcma@vermontel.net or through DocuMania.
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