A Writing Contest Gizmo: The Contest Calculator

A couple of weeks ago, I shared a writing contest guide—a comprehensive list of questions and answers for how to evaluate a writing contest. Leave it to Chills Subs to create a great gizmo—The Contest Calculator—that does the work of evaluating a contest for you!

To find it, click the link above or:

• Go to the Chill Subs homepage
• Click “Toolbox” in the sidebar
• Find the Contest Calculator on the bottom of the column on the right
• Click through

You will find a form to complete with basic contest information: the organizer, entry fee, prize money, etc. The Contest Calculator also includes a “transparency assessment” with a list of ten factors, like whether judges are named, previous winners are listed, and blind judging is confirmed. A contest can gain bonus points for going the extra mile, like if the entry fee includes a journal subscription.

The Contest Calculator then tabulates a quality score between 1 and 10 and provides a descriptor: Rock solid respectable; Solid with asterisks; Perfectly mediocre; Almost impressively bad; and Caution tape zone. You can share your score with the Chill Subs community and see all of the Contest Quality Scores here. Chill Subs is in the process of verifying the contests’ scores too.

I gave the Contest Calculator a try with The Missouri Review’s Perkoff Prize. This TMR contest has been running for five years. I submitted to the contest in its first year and was a finalist in the creative nonfiction category.

TMR’s Perkoff Prize scored 5.7—Perfectly Mediocre. The contest fared well as far as the organizer’s credibility, contest longevity, and transparency, which are all important to me. The fact that the contest has just one prize-winner per genre detracted from its score. Although TMR chooses five finalists in each genre, only the winner gets prize money and publication. Yeah, that’s a bummer, so the contest got a poor score for the prize return.

I’m pleased to have the Perkoff Prize “finalist” credit in my bio, and I find the contest worth the entry fee due to the prestige of the journal. But the Chill Sub’s Contest Calculator highlighted that contests with more than one prize provide more chances for publication and money, too. With any assessment, there’s some amount of subjectivity. So consider what’s most important to you as a writer.

As gizmos go, I find the Chill Subs Contest Calculator a nice asset for my writer’s toolbox.

Andrea A. Firth is an essayist and editor for Brevity Blog. She often teaches and writes about submitting and publishing in literary journals and on the web. On the first Wednesday of each month, she leads a co-working session called Submit It Now!—time to work on submitting your writing with the support of peers in the Zoom room. Andrea starts each session with a review of a topic or questions related to the submission process. Last month, she reviewed the pros and cons of writing contests. In February, she’ll talk about expediting the submissions process. You can register for Submit It Now! here. It’s FREE! Read more from Andrea on her Substack Everything Essay!