If you're new to competitions the chances are you're either very cautious and are reading our guide for help OR you've already started, entered every competition going and are wondering why you haven't won yet!

Loquax is an online competition service, so our guide will tend to concentrate on this area - however the basics can be applied to postal competitions too.

Why Enter Competitions?
We all like the idea of winning something for free - for a few minutes effort of sending in an email you could win a holiday, car or cash prize! Away from the thrill of winning, comping is also a sociable hobby - visit our forums or join a local comping club and meet like minded compers. Online comping is also fun. By entering competitions you get to visit a whole range of websites, and this is a great way to surf the net and learn new things!

Be Selective!
Some sites will tell you "enter everything" - we think this is bad advice. Our view is enter competitions for the prizes you'd like to win. There's a lot of competitions around (both online and postal) so you can be selective.

Don't Ignore The Smaller Prizes
Thousands of people enter competitions, but don't let that put you off! The bigger the prize often means the more entries. Competitions for smaller prizes such as CDs and DVDs attract low entry levels, so your chances of winning can be quite high!

Chances of Winning
Many people assume that online competitions attract loads of entrants. However, our research suggests that the number of entrants for most competitions is often between 500 to 5000 - so the chances of winning a prize are still quite good. Of course the bigger the prize (e.g. a car) the more people will enter, but don't ever think you won't enter a competition because you have no chance of winning. You do!

Don't Worry If You Don't Win
If you don't enter competitions - you won't win! If you do, then you have a chance of winning. Be positive, perservere, and take encouragement from the fact that people do win competitions.

Enjoy Your Comping
The key, in our opinion, to comping is simply to enjoy it! It's a great hobby with the added bonus of the chance of winning some exciting prizes. If you participate on our forums too and chat with other compers you can also enjoy friendship and chat too.