Monday Competition News

My copy of Writing Magazine arrived this morning and l suddenly realized l have never shared news of the website nor the many competitions open to writers.

This month's competition--and l'm ahead of the game here because it's in the August magazine-- is to write a love story in 1500-1700 words. The story winning first prize stands to win £200, will be published in the magazine and maybe also online at www.writers-online.co.uk 


Deadline for entries is September 14 so we slow writers have plenty of time to craft and polish.

The competition rules are clear. Entry fees are minimal and the three competitions with closing date mid-month are listed under Open Competitions here. There are opportunities for children's writers and poets are always well catered for  too with articles and competitions.The top menu bar also has a Win Prizes link, worth checking out regularly.


Great prizes too at the Valhalla Press Literary Fiction and Creative Non-Fiction contest. Access the contest from the second item down on the left hand side menu. (My server did not like the direct link.)


If you are looking for contests, grants, writing opportunities be sure to visit C. Hope Clark's marvellous Funds for Writers website and sign up for her  newsletters.

Writing for Children

In a guest post on Wednesday, Jo Linsdell is again visiting Slow and Steady Writers, this time as part of the book tour for her new children's picture book, Out and About at the Zoo.

 I'm very much looking forward to her interview after the visit she made earlier this year promoting Italian for Tourists.

 Out and About at the Zoo has  already collected loads of four and five star reviews on Amazon so many congratulations are in order.


This week l have been looking at Tiffany Dow's reviews of the Geoff Shaw course on Kindling and reconsidering my eBook plans.

Karen Cioffi's How to Write Books for Children appeals to me as a good place to start so l shall be studying that and seeing what ideas it brings to help me write a Kindle eBook.

Book Reviews

The  judges' score sheets for the Global eBook Awards are now lodged with the organisers and results will be announced hopefully by mid-month. l thoroughly enjoyed all the entries for the Suspense and Mystery categories and learned a lot from analysing the work of so many authors new to me.


My Kindle for PC is now also crammed with around sixty books needing reviews so l'll be posting short snippets here on Fridays re any books l have found particularly interesting and helpful...well, that's the plan...
 

Today's Question

How helpful are Twitter and Facebook when it comes to selling your books? Or do you find you spend too much time promoting books there for a minimal result?