Readers Favorite – 2015 Award Winner

Wantin is going from strength to strength with continual recognition in almost every competition the novel has been entered into. The most recent has been an honorable mention in the romance category at the 2015 Readers Favorite Book Awards.

International Multi Award Winning Novel Wantin By Truth Devour

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When I first started submissions for the whole trilogy (Wantin, Unrequited & Sated), I soon recognized that it was difficult to enter all three books within the same category as they were competing against one another rather than being assessed as a series. It made sense, after all the competitions I found were specifically for single entry considerations. 

If you are published and have begun your own journey of competition submissions you will understand what I mean by it all adds up $$. Especially when you start looking at multiple categories for multiple novels. In the instance where the e-book submission route is not available there is a need to factor in the expenses around supplying paperback copies (usually three) and posting them to the relevant country. The trilogy was costing me a kings ransom to submit. 

It didn’t make sense for me to continue trying to get all of my books in the trilogy recognized at the cost of competing against each other. Instead, I concentrated on just submitting my first book of the series Wantin, into as many of the competitions which accepted Indie titles / self published authors. This in hind sight was the best decision I could have made because I was now in a position to afford to enter a larger variety of book festivals for less outlay. 

Categories are another real challenge I faced when entering my work into competitions. There seemed to be a variance in not only the availability of consistent genre and sub- category naming convention but also the interpretation of what qualifies the works to be aligned to it. In some places such as Amazon my trilogy has been classified as ‘erotica’ due to the sexual descriptives contained within the body of work. The reality is that if I submitted Wantin under this genre for competition assessment the judges would no doubt be disappointed. Instead, where possible I try to enter competitions that align with the core of my trilogy’s story, which personally I feel falls into an Adult Contemporary Romance space. If this isn’t available then I tend to lean toward Romance – General, Chick Lit and if they have it ‘Wildcard.’

Another little gem of wisdom I can share is the importance of organizing yourself. I’m not sure about you but for the most part I feel eternally time poor. No matter how many hours in a day I consume on my creative pursuits, I still short and always yearn for more. In saying this I guess the emphasis on being organized is a critical success factor in not only being prepared for when I need to enter competitions, but also for when to check for upcoming results.

There isn’t really an ideal one stop shop literary competiton calendar for these types of events available. If you google it as I did you can certainly get a large amount of articles apportioned to discussing the need to have one, but I am yet to locate any provided which hold value to me for easy reuse purposes. The long and the short of it is that in the end I created my own. My experience has taught me that it is best not to leave it unchecked for too long. I find it needs to be updated at least annually due to the regular competitions sometimes shifting dates, participation rules, entry prices etc. In my case the added challenge is my propensity to write in many genres. I’ve just released book one – Illuminarium in the Soliloquy’s labyrinth up and coming five series.  The genre is dystopian fantasy with a sub category of paranormal. This means I need to revisit what are the competitions available so I can start mapping out a competition calendar to cater for genre.

Oh, the joys of being a writer. No-one ever tells you that your writing must be artfully juggled in between the social media promotions, blogging for sanities sake, entering competitions, engaging with reviewers, book releases, signings and on the odd occaision a social life.

Blessings – Truth Devour