I’m a competitive person in nature. It is in my blood. I love competing in a healthy way. As a writer/ novelist, writing for contests or competition is not only a form of therapy to me to express myself, but also a way for me to compete with other great writers out there and actually get acknowledged for writing.

There are a lot of writing competitions out there, and a few days ago, a friend of mine highlighted one that offers quite a handsome reward to it’s winners as a prize: Some cash and a getaway trip to a local holiday destination of the winner’s choice. My friend was all excited about it and was convinced that I could at least bag a consolation prize.

All I need to to do is just do some writeup, submit the writing to them and play with SEO a lil bit and get the piece to first page on Google and I’ll be in the running to win myself a well-deserved getaway.

As a writer…I am honestly tempted to give it a shot…but these days, I feel that I can’t really be bothered joining all these writing contest anymore as it is a complete waste of time. Why? Read the reasons below:

1. Not all contests are genuine.

2. Some contests are just manipulating the contestants to boost up their popularity among the consumers.

3. Some contests doesn’t allow you to use pseudonym, and that is not fine with me as it does not protect my privacy as an individual.

4. Judging is doubtful and not transparent

5. Some contest would require social media interaction. Eg: Get most like on Facebook/Retweet/G+ and automatically win the contest. I think this is not very fair. That would mean popularity vs.quality. The popular ones on social media gets the prize…so why not just host a beauty peagant instead if popularity is what the host is promoting? Talented but not popular contestants usually gets overshadowed and I think that is really a shame!

6. Most SEO writing contest benefits organizers more than the prize reward could compensate for the contestants’ time and effort.

7. Organizers gets their brand on top of Google search page… But contestants…what do they get in return, actually? Winners get coveted prizes as a reward, but how about those who won nothing? To me this is cheap advertising where writers/bloggers/ contestants are actually sponsoring advertisement as at the end of the day, organizers popularity and brand recognition increased with all those social media interaction.

8. Last but not least, what I hate most about contests or online writing competition is that sometimes, no winners were announced as promised at all although in the initial stage, organizers stated that winners will be announced publicly on a certain stipulated date.

There. I’ve said why I don’t always bother to join much writing contest anymore. I hope you guys understand my frustration. Sometimes it is not about the prize money, but well deserved aknowledgment and appreciation. If I can’t even get recognized and appreciated for writing, then I might as well not waste my time and effort on it.