theotherideas Presents: My Experience and Tips on Hosting a Contest

Hey there! I'm Nicki, also known as theotherideas on Wattpad, where I'm an aspiring author, graphic designer, contest host and critic. Thanks to the awesome KellyAnneBlount, I've been invited to return for the second time to be featured in the Wattpad Block Party - Winter Edition IV!

For those of you who read my post last year, I shared my personal tips on writing a critique. This year, I've decided to share my experience and tips on hosting a contest. Last year, I hosted the Heavenly Awards 2017, and this year I hope to do the same. If you're interested, you can check out @TheHeavenlyAwards for more information.

Without further ado, let's get down to the nitty-gritty!

PART 1 - The Set Up

So you want to host a contest. Awesome! Practically anyone can host a contest, but not all contests are hosted successfully. I've seen contests that are abandoned/cancelled halfway, due to either lack of submissions or overwhelming amounts of submissions. I've seen judges swamped with work and don't know how to deal with it. These common problems can usually be avoided by doing one thing well - and that's planning.

When you're a new contest host, its exciting! That's what I felt when I began hosting The Heavenly Awards. I couldn't wait to publish my contest, or interact with my fellow judges and the contestants. I was almost swept away with the desire to start my contest immediately, but thankfully, I didn't.

For a week, before I even thought about what the actual book would look like, I focused solely on getting all the basics ready.

Firstly, I decided to create a new account solely for hosting contests. Now, depending on how large you want your contest to be, you can skip over this step and host a contest on your own account, but if you're thinking of hosting a large contest (e.g. 100+ contestants), I would highly recommend creating a new account. That way, the things you do on your personal account won't get mixed up with things that have to do with your contest.

With the creation of this account, I spent time crafting a professional-sounding bio, a header, a profile picture, and the basic outline of the actual contest book. Since I was thinking of recruiting judges, I also opened up a brand new email account solely for the Heavenly Awards. You might be wondering why I didn't just stick with Wattpad's personal messaging, but you'd be surprised how many PM's you'd get from contestants and judges alike when hosting a contest.

Secondly, I began writing the actual contest book. I created an introduction, sign up forms, faq's, and more. This was a relatively easy process for me because I had already envisioned what my contest would look like. I'd decided on the prizes, the number of winners, and the rubric beforehand. It was all a matter of getting it down on paper. However, if you do find yourself wondering about this, I would recommend reading through several old contests for inspiration.

I also made my own cover, although if you're not confident with graphic design I would highly recommend asking a graphic designer to create one for you. After I was satisfied with how my book looked in my drafts, I hit publish.

PART 2 - The Execution

Now here's where I made a string of mistakes.

MISTAKE ONE: (aka the mistake where everything actually turned out rather well)

I didn't advertise. At all. This made my book difficult to find, and left me wondering why no one was signing up for my contest. Eventually, after a day or so, I began advertising on different threads, shouting out my contest on my account, and posting comments on books designed for advertising. For a while, nothing really happened, but then suddenly my contest skyrocketed (from what I can only assume to be because of word of mouth) and I was getting hundreds of submissions. Although I did end up getting submissions, I would suggest putting some time either before or after the publication of your contest into advertising.

MISTAKE TWO (aka the mistake that I 100% regret and led to 90% of the problems I would later experience)

Despite the large number of submissions flying in, I didn't realise that I would need help reading through and grading all of the books, nor did I think of adding a maximum number of submissions until it was too late. I had a set number of judges that I had previously decided upon (during the 'Set Up' phase) and didn't think of adding more. Same goes with not adding a maximum amount of submissions. I just wasn't thinking.

This decision was the biggest thing I regret now that the Heavenly Awards 2017 are over. After submissions were closed, I found myself swamped with work. It was terrible. Despite the judges' help, I found myself doing most of the work, and this turned what was supposed to be a fun contest into a tedious chore.

The large workload led to one problem after another. Judges started dropping out because they couldn't handle grading so many books or just went MIA, and I had to scramble to find new ones to replace them. Because of this, our team started slipping behind schedule. In an attempt to get everyone back on schedule, I started taking on more books, leading to additional stress. And despite everyone's efforts, and I had to push back the deadline two whole months in order to fairly grade and critique over 600 books.

Please, fellow contest hosts, don't make the same mistake I did. Think ahead! If you think you're getting too many submissions, add a maximum amount. If you think you need to find more judges, find more judges! Sometimes you do have to scrap your plans in order to make better ones.

PART 3 - The Wrap-Up

Despite the speed bumps that I hit, the Heavenly Awards did eventually end on a pretty good note. The winners/runner-ups were posted, the judges publicly thanked, and I made a little "Thanks for joining, sorry for everything that went wrong, please think about coming back next year!" post at the very end. Everything was great...sort of.

You see, Mistake Two had continued to haunt me even after the contest had finished (yet another reason to NOT make the same mistake!) After the end of the contest, I was completely and utterly burnt out. I was so relieved that everything was over. For a few hours, I let myself get caught up in the pride and euphoria of actually making it through all of the obstacles until it hit me.

I still had to distribute the prizes.

Usually, this would be a breeze for me. But because of how taxing all the reading and grading was, the simple task of writing reviews, or adding books to a reading list, or conducting interviews, became 100 times more difficult. I decided that I would do it tomorrow, and when tomorrow rolled around, I told myself I would do it the next day, and the cycle continued. Additionally, because of the extra two months that grading took, it was the summer holidays for me, which made it even more difficult to find the time and energy to spend on my contest.

Don't procrastinate. Even if you're tired and you think you deserve a break, CARRY ON! Procrastinating makes a task so much harder to do than it should be, and it can be especially tempting with prize-giving at the end of a contest.

IN CONCLUSION:

In conclusion, I would like to create a handy list of suggestions for what a contest host could publish in their contest book. Please note that you don't need to include any or all of these, and the list if my own personal opinion. Nonetheless, I hope this helps anyone thinking about hosting their own contest!

List -

· Introduction (Possible Topics: Does your contest specialize in a particular genre? Do you have any "core values/beliefs"? A simple welcome is fine too!)

· Rules (Establish some ground rules so everyone knows what's going on. Possible rules can include: no bullying/being rude, only accepting books from *so and so* genres, only one submission per person, etc. Most rules have some sort of password that contestants need to mention in their sign up form to make sure that they've read the rules. You could also mention some consequences if a rule is broken, such as being removed from the competition or earning 'strikes'.)

· Prizes (What will your winners/runner-ups win? Most of the prizes I've seen are follows, reviews, shoutouts, or some sort of graphic).

· Sign-Up Forms for Contestants/Judges (This is almost 100% a must. A basic sign up form for contestants would include: title, username, genre of the book they're submitting, and some sort of password to make sure that they've read the rules).

· FAQ's (Not every contest has these, but I personally found them very helpful and would 100% recommend them. Take note of questions that people often ask and create a chapter addressing them. That way, you don't have to answer a question over and over again. It saves a lot of time.)

I could honestly go on and on for quite some time about my experience and tips on hosting a Wattpad contest, but unfortunately, this post has to end somewhere. I really hope that I've been helpful and that you've enjoyed reading my Wattpad Block Party post! Have an awesome day/night!

Cheers,

Nicki

GIVEAWAY INFORMATION:

theotherideas will giveaway a detailed critique of a book up to 3 chapters to one lucky winner! My giveaway is open internationally.

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Regular Link to Blog: http://kellyanneblountauthor.blogspot.com/2018/01/wattpad-block-party-winter-edition-iv.html