Writing contests gain steam online
The power of the internet is being used to try to find the next top novel! According to a Yahoo! News article some major players in bookselling are also getting involved in the search. Amazon, the online mega-store with humble beginnings selling only books, is partnering up with the Penguin Group and Hewlett-Packard:
From Monday until November 5, authors from more than 20 countries with an English-language novel manuscript can submit their work to Amazon which will assign a group of online reviewers to evaluate excerpts online and invite customers to make comments and rank their favorites.
The hope is that by letting writers submit their unpublished novels via the internet, it will greatly level the playing field and allow complete unknowns to have a chance at being published. Furthermore, one of Amazon’s long-running features is to let ordinary readers write reviews of the books they read (many of these reviews are quite comprehensive).
What does the winner receive:
The contest will be conducted over six months with the 10 finalists selected by the final month and Amazon.com customers voting to choose the winner. The winner, to be announced on April 7, will receive a publishing contract with Penguin which
includes a $25,000 advance.
That’s not too shabby for what will probably be an unpublished, unknown writer! However, on a more personal note, I will say that I have dropped my support of Amazon.com (which also means no more affiliate ads) because of their continued sales of magazines that promote dog fighting. When they cease sales of such publications I might go back to supporting Amazon.
But wait, there’s much more! Borders is partnering up with Court TV and Gather.com to sponsor their own writing contest, they are looking for the next best crime novel.
From Monday, writers can submit mystery/crime manuscripts to be evaluated and voted on by a community of readers, writers and aspiring authors on Gather.com.
A select group of judges will announce the winner next year. The winner will receive a publishing contract with Borders and a $5000 advance.
One great thing that I really like about both of these contests is that it gives ordinary readers a real say in who the winner is. Most other awards and contests are judged by panels of people in the literary community (usually made up of authors, editors and critics). While there’s nothing inherently wrong with this, sometimes their choice for the winning book can be questionable. The contests that Amazon and Borders are sponsoring, on the other hand, give the job of judging to a much broader audience. Their selections should be interesting!
You can read the entire Yahoo! article here:
Writers compete for online readers for a book deal
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