Organizing Your Contest Submissions to Track Writing Progress

For writers who are new to the game, as well as writers looking to test a new story or concept, contests can be a great way to track your progress and get invaluable feedback at a fraction of the cost of full script notes. But, if you're on a budget you can't afford to submit multiple scripts out to every contest in a single year and you certainly can't afford to forget and send the same script to a contest multiple times! I have to admit that I've had to go through old emails to try and discover whether I had already submitted to a contest, only to find I had and had almost paid twice. I needed a system to keep me better organized and while it may be bare-bones, today I'm going to show you my spreadsheet for tracking contest submissions.

There are several sites like ISA and Coverfly that keep track of submissions that you make with them, but I needed one place to find all my submissions across the board. So I created a spreadsheet that lists the date submitted, name of the contest (or fellowship), the price paid, the script submitted, notification date, response, and notes. Below is a sample of that spreadsheet.

"Date Submitted" helps keep track of the contest year. "Program/Contest" shows you (obviously) which contest you entered but when sorted alphabetically can be used as a tool to see which contests you get the most response from. Keeping track of the price you paid is great if you have a yearly budget of how much you can spend.

A handy tool is dragging your cursor over the prices of a whole year of submissions and looking at the SUM feature to quickly see how much you spent. "Script submitted" is fairly straightforward. I tend to keep submitting a script if it starts to gain traction in contests. Adding a notification date keeps you from going mad looking up the contest website every 3 weeks. I indicate the very first announcement date, usually for the quarterfinals. And "Response" is a very important aspect. You probably remember the contests you placed in, but when you write down each win and each "not accepted" you can quantify your success rate.

When I started analyzing my spreadsheet, going back to my first tracked contest entry in 2014, I realized I have a 25% rate of placing in quarterfinals or higher! That's 1 in 4 submissions! That makes my last rejection notice not feel quite as terrible. I'm always working to get that rate up, but I think it's incredibly important not only to see the "not accepted" as it is to see the "accepted" responses. Of course, I always make the accepted responses all caps just to celebrate those wins a little more :)

Last but not least, is the "Notes" section. Early on I used this section less often, but lately it has been useful for keeping track of which versions of scripts I sent as well as breaking down the price I paid and adding any useful information about the submission.

That's it! I update the spreadsheet after every contest submission and make sure to update any wins. I use Google Sheets because it's in the cloud and I can look it up and add submissions from my laptop or my phone. If you have a system that expands on this or a program that makes it even easier, feel free to let me know! I'm always looking for ways to improve.

Happy writing!

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Holly Holstein is a Los Angeles-based writer with over ten years creating content. She writes independent reviews and articles and is not compensated for her posts. If you enjoy her articles, please sign up to become a member!