Is the Entry Fee Worth It? The Contest Math Nobody Shows You

Every contest charges a fee and every poet wonders if it is a scam. A judge who has read the ledgers explains the real math, the three contests where the fee is worth it, the three where it is not, and the one test that tells you which you are looking at.

Every contest charges a fee, and every poet asks the same question before they pay it: is this a scam? It is a fair question, because the answer is not always yes and it is not always no. The fee is the price of the judge's time and the prize money and the admin, and the question is whether the contest is spending it on you or on themselves.

I have read the ledgers of a dozen contests, and the math is simpler than the poets think. The fee is worth it when it buys you three things: a real judge, a real prize, and a real read. It is not worth it when it buys none of them.

The three contests where the fee is worth it

Contest one: the one with a real judge. If the judge is named, if they have a track record, if they are the kind of person whose name means something in the field, the fee is buying you their read. A real judge's read is worth more than the prize.

Contest two: the one with a real prize. If the prize is real money, real publication, real recognition, the fee is buying you a shot at it. The prize is the return; the fee is the stake.

Contest three: the one that publishes the winners. If the contest publishes the winning poem in a real journal or a real anthology, the fee is buying you a publication credit. The credit is the thing that opens the next door.

The three contests where the fee is not worth it

Contest one: the one that is a pay-to-publish scheme. If the contest publishes everyone who pays, the fee is buying you a line in a book nobody reads. The publication is the product, not the prize.

Contest two: the one with no judge. If the contest does not name a judge, or if the judge is a committee of anonymous volunteers, the fee is buying you a lottery ticket. The judge is the thing the fee is for.

Contest three: the one that is a money pit. If the contest charges a fee and offers a prize that is smaller than the fee, the contest is a business, not a contest. The prize is the bait; the fee is the catch.

The one test that tells you which

Here is the test I use on my own entries, and it is the only one that matters: does the contest publish the winners' names, or the winners' poems? If it publishes the names, it is a business. If it publishes the poems, it is a contest.

A contest that publishes the poem is a contest that is proud of the work. A contest that publishes the name is a contest that is proud of the entry. The difference is the difference between a contest and a business.

Where the fee goes wrong

The trap is the contest that charges a fee and then does not read the entries. The fee is buying you a read, and if the read is a form letter, the fee is a tax. A contest that does not read the entries is a contest that is not a contest; it is a business that sells the illusion of one.

If you want to see a contest that does it right, the Writory contest is transparent about the judging, and the past winners page shows the work that won. The fee is the stake. The read is the return.

Keep reading

For the craft side, the contest-tips module covers the deeper method. The past winners is the page to read next, and the current window is where the work goes when it is done.

By Writory Editorial, for Writory.

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