Your Book Wins Contests But Can't Sell - Why?

This question popped up today in a social media feed and I felt it was a great topic to expand on here in the blog. This also deals with issues not just with contest wins, but also with feedback from critique groups and "beta-readers."

So the question was pretty simple. Why is it that authors can win contests left and right, but when it is time to find an editor or agent, noting happens and they get slammed with rejection after rejection? This is clearly something that happens to a lot of authors, so don't feel alone.

There are several answers here to this seemingly simple question:

Best of the best in the contest only
This is something that a lot of editors and agents face when we read those final round entries. i don't know how many times I read these final round winners and sit back shaking my head. The stories are just not good. In some cases, the stories are just plain awful, and yet, the story made it to the final round. You would think that the final round entries SHOULD BE unbelievably good. What happens here has a lot of variables. In some cases, you have people who are judging who really are still learning the craft. Therefore they are judging it SUBJECTIVELY and not thinking about the story OBJECTIVELY. Many preliminary judges are also looking at things they personally like, so it doesn't give you an accurate picture.

I would also add here that many contests are only looking at a partial of your story. Those opening chapters will often be amazing, but after that the story just falls apart. Remember, editors and agents are looking at the whole story and not just that small piece.

Contests often don't look at marketability
When we look at projects as editors and agents look at stories, we are looking to see if the project would sell in today's market. We can often find great stories that are well-written, if the market is not looking for that style of writing, or that genre, we won't sign it. When it comes to the contests, the preliminary and final rounds, the criteria is simply looking at the book in isolation from the market. We look at characters, setting plot and theme, but nothing more.

Critique groups and beta readers are reading the book out of the context of real-world publishing.
This is very similar to the prior issue. Readers are reading the book and not thinking beyond the pages they are reading. There is another issue to this and it is the subjectivity of the group. These readers are often not overly willing to tell people the truth about the book but are there for motivation. Of course your critique group likes your book - they like you!

User error 
This one is really simple. If you are submitting the wrong material to the wrong person, not following the submission guidelines, or are putting together a proposal that is not selling your story, you will not get the response you want!

Hope this helps!