Screenwriting Contest Advice

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Are Smaller Screenplay Contests Worth the Money?

By Jerry Traynor, Associate Editor, Moviebytes.com

Every year, thousands of aspiring screenwriters send their work off to contests, hoping for discovery, validation, or at least a set of notes that might help polish their scripts. The biggest competitions - The Austin Film Festival, the PAGE Awards, Scriptapalooza - are well known for launching careers. But what about the smaller contests, the ones advertised with modest entry fees, cash prizes, and vague promises of "industry exposure"?

Are they worth the time and money?

The Case Against Smaller Contests

The truth is that most contests, especially the lesser-known ones, don’t deliver much beyond a certificate or a line you can paste into a bio. Many entrants get little more than a polite rejection and no meaningful contact with the industry.

In a widely circulated guest post on John August’s blog, writer Paige Feldman broke down the economics of contests. She tracked how many submission opportunities appeared in her inbox over the course of a year, added up the potential entry fees, and compared that to the odds of any meaningful outcome. Her conclusion was straightforward: a writer could easily spend hundreds of dollars chasing opportunities that rarely result in industry traction. For the majority of entrants, the investment doesn’t pay off.

Even in smaller contests, the competition is fierce. The judging process can be opaque, with "industry professionals" sometimes turning out to be junior readers. Promises of Hollywood exposure are easy to make but difficult to verify. Unless a contest can point to alumni who’ve landed representation or seen their scripts developed, the fee is better thought of as a gamble than a career step.

Why Writers Still Enter

Still, smaller contests aren’t always a waste. They can serve as a source of motivation, creating deadlines that push writers to finish and polish drafts. Some competitions provide reader feedback, which, when thoughtfully delivered, can be useful. And for many, even the small validation of placing as a finalist is energizing.

There are also genre-specific contests - particularly for horror screenplays, that can be more relevant than general competitions. Because the audience and judges are more specialized, a strong script may have a better chance of standing out, and the connections forged there may be more targeted.

Choosing Carefully

The question isn’t whether contests are good or bad in general, but whether a particular contest offers real value. The best ones are transparent about their judges, have a track record of finalists securing representation or production, and provide something tangible in return, such as notes, introductions, or table reads. Weaker contests lean heavily on vague promises of exposure and hand out laurels that don’t mean much in the industry.

Experienced writers often keep track of what they spend, where they place, and what they get back - whether it’s useful feedback, contacts, or simply confidence. That record makes it easier to separate the worthwhile contests from the ones that are essentially vanity awards.

The Bottom Line

Smaller contests should be treated with caution. They can be useful as motivators, sources of feedback, or résumé boosters, but they’re not a reliable way to launch a career. As Paige Feldman’s analysis makes clear, the economics don’t often work in a writer’s favor.

The best strategy is moderation: choose a handful of contests with credibility and a track record, submit polished work, and view the outcome as a bonus rather than a career plan. Contests may help you along the way - but the real breakthroughs usually come from the work you do outside of the contest circuit.

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