It Takes a Village to Publish a Novel
One of the many myths about writing and writers is that we work alone. We sit in our attic room, scratching away for weeks and months and years, and eventually produce a work of staggering genius that has the publishers beating a path to our door, each one waving a larger cheque (or check) than the one before.
If only.
Writing is a team effort. Just like it takes a village to raise a child, it takes a team to write a novel. If you don’t believe me, check the acknowledgements page in the novel you’re currently reading and count how many people the author has thanked. For example:
- God
- Family
- Friends
- Critique partners
- Beta readers
- Specialists who’ve offered advice
- Agent
- Editors
- Cover designer
- Marketing team
- Prayer warriors
And those are only the people the author can name.
There are also dozens of unsung helpers who contributed to that novel—maybe hundreds. These might be:
- Fiction authors who’ve written helpful craft books.
- Non-fiction authors who’ve written useful technical books.
- Marketing experts who’ve written marketing books.
- Writers who’ve shared their knowledge for free on various blogs and websites.
- Speakers who’ve presented at national or local conferences.
- Reviewers who help spread the word about the author’s book.
- Contest judges who’ve provided useful feedback.
- Organisations which bring writers together to network and learn.
The list goes on.
Sure, some authors making writing all about them. But the best writers recognise the village who contributed to their success, and ensure they give back to the community which has given them so much.
But how can we give back … especially as unpublished writers?
One easy way to give back is by judging a writing contest.
I will admit: this isn’t entirely altruistic. I usually judge several contests each year, and I’ve learned a lot about writing and editing from judging writing contests. I covered some of these lessons in a recent blog post at Australasian Christian Writers.
And this post isn’t entirely altruistic either: I have a motive.
I am looking for volunteers to judge the 2022 CALEB Award from Omega Writers.
Omega Writers is a Christian writing organisation serving writers from across Australia and New Zealand. CALEB stands for Christian Authors Lifting Each other’s Books, and the award considers published books and unpublished manuscripts.
You don’t need to be a writer!
We’d love to have more readers volunteer to judge our published books. You can choose how many entries you’d like to judge, and in what categories and genres. The categories for the 2022 CALEB Award are:
- Adult Fiction (Published and Unpublished
- Young Adult Fiction (Published and Unpublished)
- Adult Nonfiction (Published and Unpublished)
If you’d like to find out more about why judging is a great idea, then check out this blog post: Introducing the CALEB Award.
And click here to volunteer as a judge.
The CALEB Award will open for entries next month, so if you’re an unpublished Christian writer from Australia or New Zealand, it’s time to polish your manuscript!
Click here to check out how to join Omega Writers.
Yes I have judged for Caleb’s which is fun in a few ways. First time was the Shopowners category. We had a box of books and I read most of the fiction books and a few of the children’s books.
I also judged for Readers award set in Texas. We were sent about 4 or 5 books and had to judge only on the first 3 – 5 chapters (I forget the exact number) but could read the whole book later. I was reading historical and a couple I loved. They changed it to having to read the whole book and it was open to all categories and I really didn’t want books outside the Inspirational Fiction (and I could have ended up with erotica etc).
It was fun to have input because it was readers judging and I think readers are more impartial than authors as we often don’t know the author and are not swayed by who is writing and judge purely on what we like or don’t like.
Jenny, I appreciate your willingness to be a reader judge. You’re right – reader judges are important because you react purely as a reader.
I have been a first-round judge for CALEB previously and it was a great experience. I only had to read 10,000 words as a first-rounder, so it’s a great option if you’re not sure you’ll have time to read a full-length manuscript. You get to give back to other writers, and you learn heaps about writing craft in the process!
Thank you, Steph! I’m looking forward to your input again this year 🙂
Hi Iola, I started volunteering to judge writing contests five or six years before I was published. I’m sure I wasn’t particularly good at judging when I first started, but sometimes highlighting aspects of the story that aren’t working for us as a reader is enough to help the writer know what they need to improve. This is especially true if more than one judge mentions the same issue.
I’ve appreciated all the helpful feedback I’ve received from unpublished writing contest judges, and I’d encourage all writers to consider learning how to judge writing contests.
Reader feedback is always helpful, and my beta readers are worth gold regarding their feedback on my manuscripts. I’d rather hear about the problems in the story before the book is published when I have the opportunity to fix them.
I do agree that the longer we write (or edit) and the more we learn about writing, the better feedback we’re able to offer unpublished authors. But some readers offer great feedback even without being writers, and those people make great beta readers.
And anyone can judge a contest for published books … because we’re all readers.