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I entered a travel writing competition recently. I was in a rush to enter before the closing date and didn't fully grasp how the voting was organised until after I'd entered. The competition was based on the twenty entries with the most votes achieving the shortlist. Although quite a few Talkbackers were kind enough to vote for my entry - I was unable to gain enough votes as I don't have huge numbers of facebook friends etc...
Competition organisers who find their shortlist or winner based on how many votes a competitor can rustle up seems a most unfair, unbalanced way to do it which is why I won't support the voting system again.
I remember your story, Claudia, and voted for you. I understand your viewpoint, and I did wonder about that with this competiton. It does say entries for Paper Swans must be kept anonymous. I'm sticking to that, so I won't be seeking any votes, but I wonder how many people will follow that rule.
Although it would be fairly easy for the Paper Swans editor/admin to google entry titles and excerpts and see if they pop up on other sites, and disqualify anyone found to be trying it on.
Speaking of that, I googled my own work, after I tried self-publishing, to check that it wasn't being pirated anywhere. Lo and behold I found someone in a business database with the same surname and first and middle initials, who had stolen my website profile and linked to my website. They included a postal address and telephone number for themselves, somewhere in the USA. I'm not sure what they were trying to achieve, but I got them shut down with a complaint of fraudulent activity to the website administrators.
Ah, we didn't win. But I liked the winning entries!
Only thing I wasn't pleased about with most of the entries, including my own "Let Me In" attempt, was the formatting. It seems the editor copied and pasted from our submitted documents into the website and didn't edit the layout. Hence there are no paragraph breaks for those entries that were clearly submitted in standard manuscript format, i.e. with indented paragraphs (which haven't translated over to the website for some reason). If I'd had the foresight, I would have used a blank line between each paragraph in my Word document, which it appears a couple of writers did.
I'm not blaming the formatting. I must be clear on that. I didn't even expect to win, but I enjoyed the opportunity to try more flash fiction and have it out there for people to read, as FF is something I've overlooked until recently.
Formatting wouldn't make a difference to my vote in a competition, as I know it isn't the writer's doing. But you expect a certain standard in the editing of a publication, even if it is an online journal.
Especially as they want to set up as a small press, they should be taking care over such details.
I would submit to them again, to be honest, for the iPamphlet. But next time I'll go in armed with the knowledge that, if I want my work to be displayed in a better way, I need to disregard standard manuscript formatting and use blank lines between new paragraphs instead of indenting (I assumed that's what you did in your submission, Montholon, as yours does indeed have a clear paragraph break). Oh, and they don't do italics, as the last two sentences were italicised in my original typescript. That was lost in the translation, too.
Apropos formatting etc - in a couple of on-line submissions I was alarmed to see red underlinings on my English spelt words! One only has to hope that the judges know better!
Comments
I've just submitted my entry.
Competition organisers who find their shortlist or winner based on how many votes a competitor can rustle up seems a most unfair, unbalanced way to do it which is why I won't support the voting system again.
Although it would be fairly easy for the Paper Swans editor/admin to google entry titles and excerpts and see if they pop up on other sites, and disqualify anyone found to be trying it on.
Speaking of that, I googled my own work, after I tried self-publishing, to check that it wasn't being pirated anywhere. Lo and behold I found someone in a business database with the same surname and first and middle initials, who had stolen my website profile and linked to my website. They included a postal address and telephone number for themselves, somewhere in the USA. I'm not sure what they were trying to achieve, but I got them shut down with a complaint of fraudulent activity to the website administrators.
Well, not until voting ends.
Only thing I wasn't pleased about with most of the entries, including my own "Let Me In" attempt, was the formatting. It seems the editor copied and pasted from our submitted documents into the website and didn't edit the layout. Hence there are no paragraph breaks for those entries that were clearly submitted in standard manuscript format, i.e. with indented paragraphs (which haven't translated over to the website for some reason). If I'd had the foresight, I would have used a blank line between each paragraph in my Word document, which it appears a couple of writers did.
Yes, isn't it annoying when your work isn't presented in the way you'd like. I find that often happens with electronic submissions.
Formatting wouldn't make a difference to my vote in a competition, as I know it isn't the writer's doing. But you expect a certain standard in the editing of a publication, even if it is an online journal.
Especially as they want to set up as a small press, they should be taking care over such details.
I would submit to them again, to be honest, for the iPamphlet. But next time I'll go in armed with the knowledge that, if I want my work to be displayed in a better way, I need to disregard standard manuscript formatting and use blank lines between new paragraphs instead of indenting (I assumed that's what you did in your submission, Montholon, as yours does indeed have a clear paragraph break). Oh, and they don't do italics, as the last two sentences were italicised in my original typescript. That was lost in the translation, too.
Definitely on to the next one, anyway.
Apropos formatting etc - in a couple of on-line submissions I was alarmed to see red underlinings on my English spelt words! One only has to hope that the judges know better!