Essay Contests For Money Novels & Stories

Man, I used to spend hours down this rabbit hole when I was trying to justify more writing time. The real heavy-hitters for pure cash are contests like the 'Writers of the Future', which tops out at $5000 for first place. They've got a huge sci-fi/fantasy focus, but they don't own your rights after, which is huge.

Then there are the genre-specific ones like the 'Soul-Making Keats' contest from the National League of American Pen Women—some categories have prizes up to $2500. These feel more like proper literary establishments. The catch is a lot of them have entry fees that can add up, so you've gotta weigh if the shot is worth the buy-in. I submitted to one a few years back that was $15 entry, prize was $1000, and got an honorable mention that felt better than the prize would have, honestly.

I just submitted to The Masters Review Flash Fiction contest last month—first place gets $3,000, which is solid for under 1,000 words. The caveat is their editorial taste leans toward crisp, literary prose with a twist; my more genre-bending piece got a polite pass last year. Another reliable one is the 'Saturday Evening Post' Great American Fiction Contest. It pays $500 for the winner and publication in a magazine my grandparents actually recognize, which is a weird flex but kind of charming. Not the hugest purse, but the prestige opens doors.

For pure cash, the BBC National Short Story Award is massive (like £15,000), but it's ultra-competitive and has specific eligibility around UK connection. I treat those as my annual 'reach' submissions. Honestly, don't sleep on genre-specific contests either—'Asimov's Readers' Award' or the Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine contest often have lower entry numbers and decent payouts if your story fits the mold. My strategy is mixing one 'dream' contest with a couple of mid-tier ones per season to balance hope and realism.

Man, contests with huge cash prizes always get the hype, but the super high ones are often super specific. The big ones I'm keeping an eye on are the L. Ron Hubbard's Writers of the Future, which pays out $1,000 to $5,000 to quarterly winners and then a $5,000 grand prize, so the potential payout stacks. The Bath Novel Award is another heavyweight, with a £3,000 first prize. There's also the Sunday Times Audible Short Story Award, which clocks in at £30,000 – that's life-changing money for a single short piece.

But honestly, the biggest advertised cash prize I've seen lately is for the César Egido Serrano Foundation's International Flash Fiction Contest. First place is $20,000... for a story under 100 words. Wild, right? The odds are astronomical, but it's out there. I'd also mention the Reedsy Prompts contest; it's weekly with a $250 prize, so over a year you could technically rack up a decent sum if you're consistent, though it's not a single huge payout. The real trick is checking the fine print for rights grabs; some of these big-money contests want all future rights, which isn't worth it for most of us.