Day Off

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My apologies, but I need to take the day off. It’s spring break for my kids, and my weekend was filled with lots of cultural events. I was intending on doing a review for one of them today, but I want to do it right and don’t feel I can at the moment.

So here is a reminder: Please enter Photo Flare and Photo Flash! The trickle of entries is even slower than usual. Am I mean in my rejection letters? Should I perhaps do a form rejection? The prize money is better than many paying markets out there, so I am a bit flummoxed after almost a year and a half of hosting this that I haven’t hit ten entries a month yet.

If you have ideas on how to improve the contest, please post them below.

Here is the link to the rules: Photo Flare and Photo Flash.

6 thoughts on “Day Off”

  1. Hey Melinda, I think your contests are great. I’m sorry you haven’t hit ten entries. I didn’t either with mine. Your rejections are not mean and I always appreciate a little advice (at least I always say I do), even if the truth stings a bit. LOL Hopefully more will enter closer to the end of the month. Have a fun spring break with the kids! For advice, the only thing I could suggest is maybe once and a while having more than one winner and splitting the prize money with the bigger amount going to the first place winner. I guess that’s something like do what I did kind of thing…sorry, that’s all I could think of.

  2. Thanks Shari. I’ve thought of offering two winners, but I can’t afford it. I really want to keep the prize money at semi-pro level for whoever gets paid. If I did strictly flash I could.

  3. Hi Melinda,
    I have been super busy and sadly not had much time for writing. Your contests are great!!!! And your rejections are helpful :) I promise to submit as soon as I can with my current schedule. Don’t change a thing.

  5. I’ve only entered and been rejected once, but there was nothing mean about the rejection. It was quite helpful. I also have a (possibly bad) habit of submitting really close to deadlines, so if all the submissions tend to come in late in the month, I completely understand that.

    I find the contest engaging as is and really don’t have any major suggestions, though you could maybe have some sort of “flash fiction frenzy” month and have multiple photos and allow one flash submission to each. Or maybe do an unpaid micro fiction challenge (like 250 words or less), though you would need one really good picture for that. I hope you get a few more submissions in as the month draws to a close.

  6. Thanks, Brandon. A micro fiction contest would be quite different. I like the idea of a “flash faction frenzy”, sort of like Crossed Genres did. I do know I’ll get last minute entries, which I’m totally fine with, I just have far fewer middle entries this month and got nervous. I think people like a good run for their money win or lose :)