The preposterous requirements that so many contests have for entry is perhaps the greater part of why I decided to write this guide. I encounter them so frequently, I felt like I had to do something to try and protest, while demonstrating my logic.

#1 thing you must NEVER, EVER do:

Do not, under any circumstances, for any reason, ask if an entry contains LGBTQA+ material for the purposes of exclusion in any fashion. That is discrimination.

Bigotry: '(1) Obstinate or intolerant devotion to one's own opinions and prejudices : the state of mind of a bigot. (2) Acts or beliefs characteristic of abigot

Bigot: 'A person who is obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices; especially : one who regards or treats the members of a group (such as a racial or ethnic group) with hatred and intolerance.'

It is inherently bigoted to exclude LGBTQA+ entries from participation in any applicable category. Likewise, it is unethical to allow any individual to judge your competition who will have any bias reading LGBTQA+ material, as they are, by definition, a bigot.

Just as it is perfectly acceptable to allow specification of content regarding any given minority for the purposes of reinforcement, support, and celebration, it is unquestionably acceptable to have categories or contests that are designed to bolster pride in LGBTQA+ issues, characters, and/or identity. However, being exclusionary is totally inexcusable.

(1) Nope nope nope! Never require these things:

(a) Permanent follows of any account, for any reason. Though, if you do choose to require permanent follows, don't be coy and allude to it needing to be permanent, state it directly and outright.

Why? Wattpad has a hard limit of 1000 accounts that any user can follow.

-Example: Let's say you ask for every entrant to permanently follow the account your contest is being run on, the personal accounts of the two co-hosts, and the two judges of their category. That is 5 accounts total. 1000/5 = 200. Thus, if every contest required those things, a user could enter only 200 contests for the entire duration of the time they use their account (for life). That may sound like a lot, but it's not. I have entered almost that many contests in only the course of several months. They would also not be able to follow anyone whose work they wanted to read, or any friends.

-Additional point: Your entrants are almost certainly not going to remember who they agreed to follow, for how long, and what reason, after enough time has passed. You are kidding yourself if you think that users will follow you permanently unless they actually enjoy your work.

(b) Don't require entrants to vote on your personal work. Don't ask them to add your personal work to a public reading list of their either. This is asking them to be totally disingenuous. I know I would rather have a story that no one read or voted on than one that benefited from forced endorsement.

-It is not totally unreasonable to ask entrants to read a few (short) chapters, or one long chapter, of your personal work, and provide their honest feedback, if you're really interested in that. Just realize that many people will delay or forget to enter your contest, because they are pressed for time (or just too impatient). Also, if you do ask for that, make sure you are not going to develop any judging bias against entrants who didn't care for your work and were honest about that.

(c) Don't ever make application of a participation sticker to the covers of entries mandatory. To many, a participation sticker is not just a symbol that a work has been entered in an active contest. They definitely have never prompted me to investigate any contests. What they connote to a lot of people is that the book was entered in a contest, but failed to place, a consolation prize of sorts. Thus, to many, myself included, they would be a source of embarrassment.

(2) Though, when awards contests were much less common, it wasn't uncalled for to ask for the following, times have changed, and hosts need to evolve. I personally will no longer consider entering one that has any of these prerequisites to entry:

(a) A given hashtag included among the hashtags of entries. Wattpad only allows 20 (I think?) hashtags for each story.

-Their purpose is to help potential readers discover works that are most likely to interest them, not to help lazy hosts find entries.

-There are multiple, more efficacious alternatives to help contest hosts keep track of entries. These include creating reading lists for each category and creating a chapter where all entries are listed by category.

-Requiring multiple hashtags is particularly pompous. Requiring 2 hashtags is taking up 10% of the hashtags permitted for a story for the entire duration of the contest. There are just too many contests for this to be practical anymore.

(b) Asking for follows of any account other than the account on which the contest is being run, for longer than the duration of the contest. (As mentioned earlier, the exception to this would be for a small number of judges.)

-Do not pretend that asking anyone to follow the personal account/s of any hosts could possibly be out of any legitimate need for the contest. If you have news about the contest, you should disseminate it via the account the contest is being run on.

-This is also pointless, and will not benefit anyone who gets followed in this fashion. Unless someone enjoys another user's works, they're not going to read them. I've actually stopped paying attention to the Wattpad notices about updates that I get, because I have ended up following so many people whose work I do not read.

(3) Irritating requirements:

(a) Asking an author to put a plug for your contest in the actual body of their story (as in, at the end of a chapter) is not just an inconvenience, it's also potentially very embarrassing. No one wants to have evidence sitting around that they entered a contest they didn't place in. If they are a frequent enough writer, by the time they know the results of the contest, they may not remember what book or chapter they put your contest's plug in, in order to erase it.

(b) Requiring that a user's work be nominated by another user for any category is essentially a popularity contest. Often, a user's most devoted readers are not authors themselves, so they would have no reason to stumble across your contest and nominate someone of their own volition. I know that I feel like a total ass asking my followers to nominate me for stuff, so I generally won't do it.

-If you do either require nomination by another user, or allow it at all, you should not require that the nominating user tag other Wattpad users as part of their form. It is enough that they are being generous and putting forward someone else's work for consideration, you shouldn't do anything to discourage that.

(c) If you require that entrants place your awards book in a public reading list on their profile (which is totally reasonable), it's dumb to specify the title that reading list must have. If you want it to be a list specific to awards, that's still being too picky, but better than dictating the list title itself.

(4) Passwords:

(a) Having a password that you mention in the rules, that you require be included in entry forms in order to be accepted, is not a bad way to do your best to ensure that applicants have read the instructions. But...

(b) If you require a password, insist on it from everyone. Don't be lax about it, that defeats the purpose. You will only make adherent applicants feel stupid for going to the trouble of being so meticulous.

(c) Having multiple passwords is overkill. It's hard enough to remember to include one by the time an potential entrant reads through everything and is ready to enter, several is frustrating to keep track of.

(d) Because applying to contests can be so labor-intensive, it's a nice thing to do to allow people who submit entries that are missing something, or forgot the password, a chance to correct their mistake, instead of immediately denying it permanently. This is more so the case with contests of extreme complexity and length.