My First Cheque For Writing

Today I received my cheque for coming seventh in the Young Adult and Children's short story section the the 81st Annual Writer's Digest Writing Competition. the cheque, posted from the USA, is for $25. It cost me $20 to enter the contest. The story is called, 'Leprechaun Yours Australia', which will soon be printed in a book of all the prize winners from the contest. I'll be getting a free copy.

One thing I'm not sure of is, do I have to declare it as income? I know that the $100 I'll be getting for my story, 'Crossroads', at 'In fabula-divinos' will be income, it's payment for the right to publish the story. However, I don't know if money won in a contest is the same. Hopefully, my accountant will know.

I had thought that my Leprechaun story would be my first story to be printed in a book. However, it's been beaten by the story I entered in the Unicon Freecon Short SF & F Story writing competition. The story, 'A Matter Og Technique', is story 8 in the booklet released my the Freecon organizer. You can see it in the picture of the booklet's front cover.

Interestingly, this story also came in seventh. For seventh place I will be getting a cheque for $17. Considering that it only cost me three dollars to enter the Freecon competition, I'm actually going to get a greater return from this little comp. than what I got from the big international contest.

Writer's Digest, $20 entry, 7th place, $25 prize = $5 profit.

Unicon Freecon, $3 entry, 7th place, $17 prize = $14 profit.

Writing is a funny business.