A Tale of Two Contests

Sorry about that title, but note that I’m refraining from any kind of “it was the best of contests, it was the worst of contests” opening. Each of these contests has something to recommend it, and each is run by a noteworthy and worthwhile lit mag.

Zoetrope: All-Story is holding its 2007 short fiction contest. The prize is $1,000, the judge is Joyce Carol Oates, and the entry fee is $15.

Black Warrior Review is also holding a contest, this one for both fiction and poetry. Prizes are $1,000 for first place in each category, plus publication in BWR. Judges: Josh Russell (fiction), Dean Young (poetry). Entry fee is $15, but note well that the entry fee entitles the contestant to a year’s subscription of BWR.

I’m hiding the (mild) snark here, below the fold, because I don’t want to discourage anyone from throwing his/her hat in either ring. But the Black Warrior Review contest seems like much better a deal than the Zoetrope one. The existence of contests that reward their losers with subscriptions are so much more appealing, in light of the long odds and inherently shaky prospect of a contest, that I’ve turned something of a snob towards contests that don’t make such an offer. (In this case, you may also read “snob” to mean “cheapskate.”) The joint entry/subscription fee has always made more sense to me as a writer (read “poor graduate student”), but now that I’m an editor of Hot Metal Bridge it makes sense, too: in effect you’re giving trial subscriptions and making a small bet on landing resubscribers. In the case of HMB, which at the moment is purely an internet entity, the logic is hypothetical, but no less enticing.

The BWR contest, it bears mentioning, could be seen as a stealth subscription campaign as opposed to a contest, in that the $15 entry/subscription fee is but $1 less than the ordinary subscription rate. Zoetrope: All-Story is likely running its contest as a pure fundraiser, calculating, no doubt correctly, that entries will far exceed the 67 needed to do more than break even on the deal. I can’t say for sure that in the event of HMB having a contest, our model wouldn’t be closer to Zoetrope‘s than BWR‘s. It’s economics rather than aesthetics. As a writer, though, I don’t expect anyone to like it.

-Adam