I have to send 30 pages of a manuscript (for comp) today! How? do I send in plastic sleeve? Fasten with paperclip? Loose? staple?(I'm pretty sure not staples)Help!!!!

Thanks in anticipation.
Glyn

Emma's the best person to ask, but I'd send it loose. Definitely no paperclips.
Work submitted for competitions is usually judged anonymously so remove contact details in headers or footers or you could disqualify yourself.

Thank you NMott. I think I'll do that.
Glyn

Loose, if they don't say otherwise (they hate paperclips because they eat other papers...).

Best of luck with the comp!

Emma

<Added>

Yes, good advice about erasing names and things from Naomi - there was a WWer a while back who was told their work would have got onto a shortlist, I think, if they hadn't inadvertently left their name on it.

Thanks Emma - for the advice and the luck. I think I'll need it. I've sent them loose now. So what will be will be. :-)
I'm a little worried that I haven't separated the Synopsis from the 'Chapters'. I hope they won't mind.

Glyn

<Added>

I just included my name address and other info. on a separate sheet. No name on synopsis or 'Chapters'. :-)

It was the Lucy Cavendish Comp. Anyone here ever entered it or got in the top 5?

Thanks for the advice, Emma.

Think I got it wrong on both counts for the Sunday Times Short Story Competition, then. Eight copies had to be submitted, so I stapled each copy. I'm pretty sure I put my name on as well.

Feel pretty stupid now when I think about it. Since it probably didn't get past the first hurdle, maybe I could send the same story to the next Sunday Times comp.

Andy

there was a WWer a while back who was told their work would have got onto a shortlist, I think, if they hadn't inadvertently left their name on it.

You'd think they would check when the thing first comes in and immediately disqualify anything with a name where it shouldn't be. But, then, they wouldn't get to cash your cheque. Or do they go ahead and cash the cheque anyway but chuck the story in the bin . . . ?

Oh, the cynicism.

I've stapled stories in my time if there are lots of copies - I wouldn't worry about it. Staples aren't practical for chunks of novels, but fine for stories.

Fundamentally it's worth thinking about and doing something sensible, but it's not worth agonising about - that's not what will mean you win or you don't. If they know what they want, they'll say, and if they don't say, they'll get every possible combination, including gift-boxed with pink ribbon and loose glitter, hand delivered by native-born Angola goat; you will certainly not have done the daftest thing they see.

Jan, I don't know the story in that case, although I think - I may well be remembering wrong - that the name and adress was on the last page, or somewhere that wasn't easily spotted by the poor soul who opens the entry, logs it, throws out the plastic folder, gets up for the recorded delivery, sits back down again, enters the details on the computer, deals with the cheque, tippexes out the names and other identifying marks which they asked you not to put in the first place, assigns it a number so it can be identified despite being unidentifiable, re-orders the pages of the one which was put in the envelope in a muddle, collects a papercut with every third entry etc., and drives another three stacks of 100 stories round to some filter readers on her way home to read a fourth pile herself...

On the whole, in my limited experience, competitions try really hard to be fair - hence the tippexing. But if they say Don't Do something, and you do in a way that's not picked up at the coping-with-the-cheque stage, but only when until a judge has seen the name (which was what happened in this case), I don't see that they should have to repay the entry fee: most of the costs involved have already been spent. (Actually, I don't think it's their problem if competitors can't follow the instructions, full stop. But competition organisers are nicer people than I am.)

Having sat next to the bloke who organises the filter readers for Bridport, I'm continuously astonished that any of it ever works at all, given that any money spent on it is money that's not going to the cause, or the mag, or whatever it is the competition's supporting.

Emma

That's a real insight into the mechanics of competitions, Emma!

As an aside, I went for a job interview once where the would-be interviewer had been hospitalised with a paper cut. Dangerous stuff, paper.

Andy

LoL Andy! I'm wondering what on earth he could have been doing, now....

I used to work for a small listings magazine where we handled lots of ads sent in on paper papercuts were an occupational hazards.
Emma

Hi Emma,

The papercut was on his eye, that's what I was told. Don't know if it was on the eyeball itself or just in the general vicinity. Makes me flinch just thinking about it.

Just entered the Alibi 'Search for a new crime writer 2011' comnpetition, but that was an online entry - minimal faffing about.

For the next postal comp submission, though, I will follow your advice about delivery via native-born Angola goat.

Andy