A friend of mine who works in marketing for a bookstore in Katy, Texas (Katy Budget Books - great place to visit if you're in the Houston area) approached me the other day, asking for advice on how to get more participation in the monthly poetry reading night held at the store. Immediately I suggested a poetry or short story writing contest, as this is a fun, easy way to get people excited about writing as well as reading.
If you attend groups like this, try organizing one yourself and let us know how things went!
Here are a few suggestions:
1) Focus attention on local talent and reward top participants. You could have a first, second, third place prize and two honorable mentions. The authors should be invited to read their winning entries. Parents are more apt to support and promote participation in things like this if they know that their child will have some kind of official recognition for their efforts.
2) Advertise on your web site, to patrons at the store with flyers, and through email. In addition to the prizes and honorable mentions, you could host a store raffle for the same night, where an additional coupon is available, along with signed copies of books by local authors.
3) The contest should be held in conjunction with a specially advertised store sale for the same day. That way you'd attract more patrons, and they would find out about the poetry or short story night and be more interested with its focus on charity and a contest.
4) All the entry fees from the contest should go to a well known charity such as the March of Dimes (https://www.marchofdimes.com/howtohelp/donate_online.asp) or UNICEF (see http://www.unicefusa.org/donate/). Be sure to appoint a responsible person to care for this and follow up with them to ensure all donations are promptly submitted.
5) The entry fee for the writing contest could be something reasonable like $10. The store would put up the prize money itself for the poems, which should be minimal ($35 cash prize for 1st, $25 gift card to the store for 2nd, and 50% discount off book purchases for 3rd; and of course the two honorable mentions cost you nothing; the raffle costs only the cost of the tickets, which can be printed on a computer with colored paper).
6) Definitely have clearly spelled out contest rules, such as what kind of content is prohibited and have a specific theme for the contest.
7) Also, to really get more attention and participation approach local schools. In fact, the entry fees could be donated to a local school in lieu of a charity. Ask some of the school staff to be judges. Make sure that the deadline for entries is at least a week before the award ceremony to allow enough time for the judges to get together and decide which entries will be awarded.
8) The raffle should be after the award ceremony to make sure that people get a chance to see what is going on with the contest. People will not leave if they know they might have a chance at winning something later on.
If you have other ideas, please post them here on the blog!
CT
