The Richard & Judy Writing Competition

genie

Is anyone out there considering entering the Richard & Judy Writing Competition?

http://www.channel4.com/entertainment/tv/microsites/R/richardandjudy/keep4archive/how_to_publish.html

I was until I read the rules and now I'm not so sure. According to the rules:

By entering into this competition the entrants agree to permit Pan Macmillan without charge to reproduce their entry or an edited form of their entry in any form or format for advertising, marketing or point of sale material as Pan Macmillan shall determine.

I don't like the sound of this. Any thoughts?

Mr.Nice Guy

What makes you think you are eligible?It is likely only for UK residents only.
If you want to enter a writing competition you should enter an Irish one.

Raphael

He might be a UK resident MNG

Thats nasty...you have to give up rights to your own work

luckat

You give up the rights to your work, in exchange for a 50k advance and a publishing deal. Unless your story is The Old Man and the Sea, I don't see a big problem with this! It's only that one piece of work you're trading away, isn't it?

If you have a British address, why not go for it?

genie

If you read the rules, MNG, you'd see that nowhere does it say that you have to be a UK resident.

And, yes, having to allow them to use your work without you getting royalties for it is bad.

Raphael

Also, they can edit it. So it's possible they'll pervert your idea, something that I would hate to see

Mr.Nice Guy

genie even if the rules allow Irish people to be eligible,what is the point?

It would be far better to enter one of the many Irish competitions around.I think there was a recent one with Fish Publishers.It might be finished now but you could always write your story now and enter it next year. :cool:

genie

As far as I know, most novels are edited, though not as much as they should be in some cases. I was reading a series of novels and from book to book, people's hair and eye colour changed, even names changed, which is down to sloppy writing and bad editing that these things weren't picked up before the books went to print.

Will check out other competitions. Thanks for the tip!

luckat

Oh good. Now I have a better chance of the £50k. Let's see, that's €73.5295. Mm mmm.

gnu

I think they had Irish entries to their last competition. I'd be a concerned about them editing anything I'd written. More than likely it'd be ok, but I get so protective of anything I write, I'd hate it messed with.

Shad0r

eh, lol?

Are you guys serious? Why not enter? Who cares if its a British competition.

What I dont like about it is the deadline to have the complete piece finished by. However, for 50k Sterling, they can take my work, (it only has to be 60k words btw, which is alot less than I would normally have aimed for), and they can pretty much do whatever they want to it. Just use a pen name and no one will ever know....

Like you guys that are all concerned about signing away your rights....do you guys think that whatever you write is the only piece of decent fiction your ever going to write? Fnck, I have ideas for books coming out my ears, frankly if they gave me 50k for one of them and I never saw another penny, I wouldnt care....I'd just write something else, and probably get a decent book deal for it to, off the back of the 50k story. Plus, you get to be on TV...how could that possibly hurt your writing career?

Shad0r

genie wrote:

Will check out other competitions. Thanks for the tip!

Theres a stickied thread on this forum with €3000 in the title...it has most of the info for the irish comps on the go atm....a bunch of them have deadlines that are coming up soon....

genie

I agree with Shad0r and am going to enter. So, I have the first chapter and the synopsis (HATE writing these!) but presume that I'll need to include some kind of a covering letter. As it's a competition and not a pitch to an agent, I'm not sure what to include. I'm thinking a CV, how long I've been writing, that sort of thing..?

Shad0r

It will say somewhere on their website, you dont need to send them anything other than what they ask for. It would just be a waste of time.

afaics they just want the first chapter to see if they like your writing style and the synopsis to see if your story concept is any good. Aside from that all they need is your name and contact details usually.

That said you should thoroughly read whatever info they have on the site under the application details section, as I havent. But I'm not entering this time around...not enough time to have a polished first chapter...maybe next year.

carpocrates

i dunno davey... whenever I see stuff like this I come over all foolish and feel tempted to bombard the twats with thinly veiled insulting rant-like drivel.
Fortunately them it would mean going to all the trouble of printing and posting it, what with the lack of any email address.

niall mc cann

Mr.Nice Guy wrote:

What makes you think you are eligible?It is likely only for UK residents only.
If you want to enter a writing competition you should enter an Irish one.

Couldn't you enter this one and an irish one?

See what i did there? i thought laterally.