This book isn't intended to teach you how to write, in fact it is aimed towards people that are already experienced writers but who want to add to their skills to become successful doing so, particularly in writing contests. John Reid was Chief Judge of the Tom Howard Short Story Contest for at least 15 years running (amongst others), published fifteen novels and won literary competitions himself. You can be sure his advice will help you in a wide variety of situations and particularly when entering writing competitions.

John Reid's style is friendly and fun to read. He focuses on three main strategies: Know the contest; Know the judge; and Know yourself. Know the contest understanding how people won the same contest in the past by reading their work. That allows you to produce something that is suited to that competition. Knowing the judge is equally important given how personal writing is - by finding out as much as you can about the judge's own work and style, you can write something they are more likely to enjoy.

Finally knowing yourself is according to John Reid, the more difficult aspect of writing, as we are often the worst judges of our own work. The author recommends you enter a competition more than once to increase your chances of winning. Part of the challenge is that a piece of work you can value highly can be ignored, whereas something you think is quite rough may in fact inspire the judges.