These are likely to be scrappy, but perhaps better than nothing? We'll see how it goes.
The photos will be whatever I happen to have been working on last. I don't think posts look right without an image, and that's the easiest way to include one.
From Sheelagh
Globe soup have a new exactly 100 word story any topic as follows: 2023 OPEN DRABBLE CONTEST | PRIZE: £300 | ENTRY: FREE | WORDS: 100 EXACTLY | DEADLINE: 31st MARCH, 2023. SUBMISSION INSTRUCTIONS:
globesoup.drabble@gmail.com
The winner receives £300. The winner retains ownership of their story.
The Bridgehouse Publishing competition, deadline 28th Feb, theme 'Gifted'
Best have a new competition going for a story about pets, 1200 words, closes Sunday, 26th March, submit to: bestfiction@hearst.co.uk
Also came across this on twitter this morning. Open to UK residents only but might of interest to some: https://pentoprint.org/get-involved/competitions-2023/
a Welsh Poetry Competition I saw in my local library with 3 good cash prizes see www.welshpoetry.co.uk for further details.
The monthly Spirit and Destiny mag, who publish fiction, is to close this April.
Writers who have had stories already accepted by them and any scheduled for publication, should be paid.
April, fiction editor at Woman's Weekly 'best of', is currently writing new fiction guidelines. She's very kindly supplied the following information and guidance in the meantime.
Best of Woman’s Weekly Fiction is published monthly and is mainly a collection of fiction that has been previously published in the main Woman’s Weekly magazine. As it’s a monthly rather than a weekly, the timescales for responding to pitches, commissioning, publication and payment may be longer than expected for writers used to submitting stories to weeklies.
I (April) run Best of Woman’s Weekly on a freelance basis, outside and on top of my regular job as an editor in Future’s Bookazines department. This means that I am not working on it day-to-day and rarely respond to queries within the same day. The best time for writers to contact me is on Friday mornings between 10am and 1pm if they’re hoping for a faster answer to their query. Email me on april.madden@futurenet.com
Best of Woman’s Weekly Fiction pays £75 for 750-word stories or £150 for 1500-word stories. No other word count options are available and the budget cannot be varied. The magazine contains the equivalent of four 1500-word stories in each monthly issue (This might vary from month to month, for example three 1500-word stories and two 750-word stories instead, but the basic word count and budget is always the same).
Writers should pitch me the initial description of the story in the first instance along with the proposed word count. If the story is already written, they are welcome to send it in its entirety. If the story is accepted, a purchase order will be sent to them, either with a deadline on it or noting that the story is complete and already on file.
New contributors will need to be registered on Future’s freelance hub and fill out their details with our Finance and Rights departments, which can take a little while and involves a few forms to fill out – please do be prepared for this if you’re not already registered with us!
Genres I’m looking for are currently:
Slice of life
Romance
Historical fiction
Everyday comedy
Gothic fiction / supernatural / ghost stories
Drama / thrillers / mysteries
As Best of Woman’s Weekly Fiction is monthly, I’m usually thinking a couple of months ahead in terms of themes and settings. For example, as I write this in February, I’m currently planning for late spring and early summer. It’s worth bearing this in mind if your story relies on a particular season or festival as a plot point!
We don’t have a style guide per se, but please put speech in ‘single quotes’ rather than “double” in your stories (and obviously please do run a spell check before submitting!).
Don’t forget to pop your name and pen name (if applicable) on your submitted story :)
Finally, as I’ve had a few queries about this recently, our Rights department has recently confirmed that Future is happy for writers to claim ALCS (secondary) rights on stories we’ve commissioned / purchased from them.
I'm sure you'll agree that's all very helpful. As it isn't spelled out, I asked about rights (you know me!) and April confirmed that they will continue to take all rights.
Thanks for all the comments recently. They show that the blog is read and therefore make it more likely that editors, competition organisers and others will be willing to provide information for me to share. The next scheduled post is 4th March and will include lots of links to free entry writing competitions, and some more womag news.
31 comments:
Thanks Patsy, that's interesting information. I wonder though what percentage of the fiction is Best of WW will be new material.i usually buy the weekly magazine for the fiction & have found that if I buy Best of I have read most of it before.
Thanks for the info Patsy. Always good to have things clarified. I recently sold a story to Best of WW and the response time was very quick. I don't think that rejections are sent and not sure of how long we should wait before assuming it's a no.
Many thanks for the updates, Patsy - I'd already seen a couple of the comps but hadn't thought to let you know for the blog! Will try and remember if I see any more.
Thanks so much for the updates, Patsy.
As Chris C said, it would be good to know how long we should wait before assuming it's a no with Best of WW.
That's absolutely brill. Thanks, Patsy. I haven't subbed to Best of before but will consider it now.
Thank you, Patsy. Just popped in on the offchance. Can I take it Best of... is completely different from WW... meaning you could sub to both with same story? (Not at the same time, of course.)
I note Lipstick and Lies terms have changed slightly. A paperback book due out next year as planned, but the difference is a book prize (per month) rather than the £10 (I think it was Amazon). https://www.lipstickandlies.com/
Interesting info, Patsy. I'll have a look through my story stock - see if I have anything that might fit the bill and that I don't mind losing the rights to.
Very interesting. Thanks, Pasty.
This great Patsy, many thanks. I really appreciate it.
Sorry to be pedantic but the Best story comp has a theme of pets, not animals. It's not quite quite the same!
I reckon a reject time from 'Best of WW' will be around 3- 4 months. I don't know, I'm just guessing, but that's what it is for WW.
I too, noticed that the Lipstick and lies prize had changed.
What if you win, but you don't fancy any of the top ten titles in the WH smith book chart?
If I found myself in that position, I could donate the book to a charity shop or a local phone box community library.
Thanks Patsy for lots of great info and comps. Thanks especially for the info from April at WW, always refreshing to get the info straight from the editor, your efforts are much appreciated in this.
Love the photo of the beautiful swan, very representative of my writing at moment, calm on the surface but paddling furiously underneath the water :)
BREAKING NEWS
The monthly Spirit and Destiny mag, who publish fiction, is to close this April.
Writers who have had stories already accepted by them and any scheduled for publication, should be paid.
What a shame. Another market gone.
@ Sheelagh – the fact that new guidelines are being produced seems like a hopeful sign. I doubt they'd bother if they weren't interested in buying new stories.
@ Chris – I don't know those things either. I'll email April saying some people have queries as she might like to answer them in the finalised guidelines. The questions asked here, and the frequency the same ones come up, might influence which things she includes.
@ Rosemary – Any links and info will be gratefully received.
@ Susan – I'll point out to April that people have queries.
@ Bubble – I won't be because of the all rights thing, but I do appreciate clear guidelines which let authors know what's wanted and under what terms.
@ Marguerite – Yes, to the best of my knowledge the submissions are considered entirely separately by different people, so it's possible one which wasn't quite right for one could be accepted by the other. I imagine the tone will be similar though.
@ Dorinda – Yeah, have a think and do what's right for you.
@ Anonymous – Good!
@ Sharon – Nothing wrong with being pedantic when you're right! That does make a difference - I'll make a note in the post.
If I won and there weren't any books I'd be planning to read anyway, I'd still give one a go. Sometimes a book which didn't seem like it would be for us turns out to be far more enjoyable than expected. Then I'd donate it – I only keep hold of fiction books if they're written by friends.
@ Elizabeth – If I can continue to demonstrate to editors that the blog is read and people appreciate this kind of information (as I can when there are plenty of comments like yours) I'll approach others.
@ Sharon – Oh! That is a shame.
Yes, I'd read any books I won in a comp first, before deciding to donate!
It would probably be ok to sub the same story to Best of WW (if it was rejected by WW) but the 2 mags have different lengths.
WW take 800 and 1, 800 ones.
'Best of' take 750 and 1, 500.
I wonder if April would consider Xmas and New year stories?
Very helpful info ref Best of WW Fiction and the Best comp. Thank you. I'm recovering from surgery at the moment and not able to drive or get much further than the end of the street on my crutches. What better time to focus on writing? Especially writing with a summer theme - by the time the warm weather comes I should be doing the tango.
Thanks for posting the best of WW guidelines, Patsy. It feels a bit like another market to sub to as it appears to be separate from the weekly magazine. (I didn’t realise this). And slightly different lengths as Sharon pointed out. Most of my stories seem to fall naturally around the 1500 word mark, which would need a lot of padding to stretch them to 1800, which I think can make a story feel unnatural. I assume Andrew is still editor of the weekly? I wonder if any stories might be passed between the two magazines? I have a summer story from a few years ago that I might tweak and send in.
Michael D
Thanks for this Patsy. Really helpful info re Best of Woman's Weekly. I've just has a story accepted by April which I was delighted about after receiving 2 rejections on the same day from Yours. Ouch, that hurt!
One day I'll enter one of the competitions. They always look really interesting but I always seem to run out of time.
I see others mentioning Lipstick and Lies. What is that?
Sorry to hear about Spirit and Destiny. I only had one story published there but its sad when a market closes and I feel for the folks who work there. Sharon H
Thank you, Patsy and Sharon re two lots of WW subs - that is helpful.
Thanks for the info, Patsy.
Thanks for the info. Patsy. Really helpful to hear what exactly is wanted in terms of length and subject matter for best of WW. I haven't submitted to them since the rights issue but did send a few stories when TPF slowed down and had one accepted by Andrew this week.
Do you understand what 'secondary rights' are for ALCS? There is a tick box that says you have copyright when you add new stories. I presume you wouldn't be able to tick this for WW stories?
Your swan looks a bit pensive... maybe its lost something under the water?
Alyson
Thanks so much for this Patsy - really appreciated!
Fiona
Thank you very much for the info about best of WW. I can only assume that since the word count required is different from that required by the weekly mag that they are looking for completely new stories. So it does look like a new market... I think. I'm sorry to hear about Spirit and Destiny. I had two stories published there, and always enjoyed my email correspondence with Tracie.
Thanks Patsy, really appreciated. Sad news about one magazine closed but good news about another open. Charlie.
Thanks so much, Patsy, for this post and to everyone else for their input. There's so much really useful information here and it's so helpful to see everything listed in one place. I'm going to have a go at the competitions, especially the pet one!
Thanks to Patsy and others who have contributed to another very informative post. It is appreciated. Best wishes to all with their writing.
@ Sharon – Yes, editing would be required.
@ Julia - I hope the recovery goes well and you'll be doing that tango to celebrate a writing success.
@ Michael – Yes, different magazines with different requirements. More on that in the next post!
@ Sharon H – I don't know a great deal about Lipstick and Lies (as with you time is an issue and I've not got round to checking them out). I think it's a kind of online magazine – if anyone knows more than me, please do explain!
@ Marguerite – Next Saturday's post should be of further interest.
@ Jackie – And thank you for leaving a comment!
@ Alyson – No, I don't understand about secondary rights! As you say, those who apply have to tick to say they hold the copyrights - and anyone who sells all rights doesn't. As I've never given up all rights, I've not tried applying without ticking that box, or ticked it when it doesn't apply. However I have heard from several people who've been told they can still apply for ALCS if they have permission from the publisher, and that they've been granted that permission.
If anyone is in this position, I suggest they get written permission from both ALCS and the publisher and keep a copy, just in case they're ever forced to defend themselves against a case of copyright infringement or fraud.
@ Fiona – Thanks for the comment! It's good to know how many people read the blog.
@ Maisie – As I understand it they both want submissions of new stories, but 'best of' might also continue to publish stories which have previously been in another magazine the company owns.
@ Charlie – Let's focus on the positives!
@ Marian – It is my aim to include as much useful information as possible.
@ Eirin – It's great when we can pick up information from each other.
Here's one for you Patsy
https://intrepidtimes.com/romance-on-the-road/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
Surely you can relate to Romance on the Road!
https://intrepidtimes.com/romance-on-the-road/
I'm a bit late to this, but thanks for the info, Patsy.
Well done Patsy I see another short story in this weeks Irelands Own.
Thank you for all the information! Extremely useful. I will have a go at submitting to Best of WWF as I just happen to have a 1500 word story looking for a home...!
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