Hey! A Frugal Contest for Novelists

In case you haven't heard about this contest, I thought I'd pass this letter that Amazon sent to its Advantage accounts to you. It's a darn frugal way to enter a contest with an excellent prize. Yes, there will be lots of competiton, but the world is full of competition. And there is always room in the universe for one more winner!

Hello from Amazon.com,

As a valued member of Amazon.com Advantage, we want to let you know about an exciting opportunity for authors: the third annual Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award (ABNA).

The Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award is an international competition seeking fresh new writing voices. One of the great new aspects of the contest is that self-published novels are now eligible. There will also be two categories this year: Young Adult Fiction and General Fiction. One grand prize winner from each category will receive a full publishing contract with Penguin, including a $15,000 advance. Contest details are listed below, and further information and official rules can be found at www.amazon.com/abna.

What is the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award?

The Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award is an opportunity for emerging fiction writers to join a community of authors on Amazon.com, showcase their work, and compete for a chance to get published. Sponsored in partnership with Penguin Group (USA) and CreateSpace, the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award first launched in October 2007 and received more than 5,000 initial entries. In the inaugural contest, Amazon customers voted and named Bill Loehfelm the winner with his novel, Fresh Kills. Several of the other Top 10 finalists also received publishing deals with Penguin.

The 2009 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award started out even bigger than the first contest, with over 6,500 authors signing up. After narrowing the field, the top 500 excerpts were available to Amazon customers to read and review while Publishers Weekly reviewed the full manuscripts. From that information, Penguin selected 100 semifinalists which were then reviewed by a group of Penguin editors who chose the three finalists. Excerpts from Ian Gibson (Stuff of Legends), James King (Bill Warrington's Last Chance), and Brandi-Lynn Ryder (In Malice, Quite Close) were voted on by Amazon customers, and in a ceremony in New York, James King was announced as the 2009 winner.

What are the grand prizes?
The grand prize winner in each category will receive a full publishing contract with Penguin to market and distribute the grand prize winner's winning manuscript as a published book, including promotion for the published book on Amazon.com and a $15,000 advance.

How do interested authors enter?
Contest submission period begins January 25th, 2010 at 12:01 a.m. (U.S. Eastern Standard Time) and ends February 7th, 2010 at 11:59 p.m. (U.S. Eastern Standard Time), or when the first 5,000 entries have been received in each category, whichever is earlier. There is no entry fee.

How do interested authors get more information about the contest?
Visit www.amazon.com/abna to get more information, participate on the ABNA message boards and read the rules and contest FAQ. Visit www.createspace.com/abna to sign up to receive contest updates and get tips on how to enter.

Best regards,

The Amazon Advantage Team

P.S. You'll find another list of contests in the Resources for Writers segment of my Web site, www.howtodoitfrugally.com. On that page is an article on how to make contests work as a vital part of our overall marketing campaign.

-----
Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of This Is the Place; Harkening: A Collection of Stories Remembered; Tracings, a chapbook of poetry; and two how to books for writers, The Frugal Book Promoter: How To Do What Your Publisher Won't and The Frugal Editor: Put Your Best Book Forward to Avoid Humiliation and Ensure Success. Her FRUGAL book for retailers is A Retailer’s Guide to Frugal In-Store Promotions: How To Increase Profits and Spit in the Eyes of Economic Downturns with Thrifty Events and Sales Techniques. She is also the author of the Amazon Short, "The Great First Impression Book Proposal". Some of her other blogs are TheNewBookReview.blogspot.com, a blog where authors can recycle their favorite reviews. She also blogs at all things editing, grammar, formatting and more at The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor blog.

If your followers at Twitter would benefit from this blog post, please use the little Green widge to let them know about it: