Bywater Books

[julesjones]

As part of the process of chasing last month's paperwork, I strolled over to look at the revamped Bywater Books website. It's well and truly revamped, there are several interesting looking titles for sale, they are taking submissions again, and there is a Contest. A contest with an entry fee, but entry fees seem to be the way of the literary world outside the sf genre (which views them with deep suspicion, should any non-sf person be wondering why I mention the fee), and $20 isn't an outrageous ripoff.

If you have an interest in commercial fiction targeted to lesbian readers, the url is
http://www.bywaterbooks.com/
They're primarily interested in general fiction, mystery and romance. I would note that I am not in general interested in lesbian fiction, but I'm still contemplating adding Val McDermid's mystery series to my buy list.

Comments

[ritaxis.livejournal.com]

I think outside of sf a lot of outfits use the contests more as a prod to get people writing and a showcase for people to see what writing is being done, and the entrance fees support the contests. Prestige, not rent money, is the reason for the prizes.

Though how anybody could afford to be prolific in that case, I don't know.

[julesjones]

Yup. But sf folk get very twitchy about entry fees because of the number of scam artists around, to the point where I was attacked by several people on the specfic markets community for posting a relevant RWA chapter contest that had the usual RWA chapter contest entry fees. So I tend to do the "it's got entry fees but that doesn't mean it's a scam" thing now.

I shudder to think how much money some RWA members spend on contests, but it seems to keep them amused. There's a known syndrome where some people enter lots of "three chapters-and-synposis" contests, but never work on finishing/polishing the *rest* of the book and submitting it to a publisher. They're getting their jollies from the contests. I've heard a couple of agents/editors bitch about requesting a full on a contest entry they judged, and finding that only the contest entry portion is any good. It's been polished and polished and polished for contests, but the lessons learned from the judges' feedback haven't been applied to the rest of the mansucript.