I first heard about the contest a few months back, I believe through CreateSpace (a self-publishing company). Well, I was totally prepared to go through a bunch of edits on my older novel, Life Living In A Hotel because I figured I it had a better chance than my more recently completed one, and then I was going to enter it. Well, I totally forgot and stopped editing it and screwed myself for entering that one completely.
But thats okay. I'm entering still. Or entered, as I already did.
Instead, I'm entering my NaNoWriMo novel called My Guardian Angel Book One: The Revengeful Fallen. I do hope it at least gets passed the first stage, but I really doubt it. I'm no good with pitches. This was my first NaNo and I just did it this past November (2010). But afterwards I was still in that "I-don't-hate-every-written-word-yet" stage, so I worked a lot on it after, giving everything at LEAST one good solid edit through.
So, as I said, I entered it.
Wish me luck?
So for all of you who didn't know about ABNA, heres a little background info for ya. There are two categories (genres) under which you can enter your book. General Fiction and Young Adult Fiction. It must be a novel between 50-150K words. Under each genre they (Amazon) will except up to 5,000 entries (10,000 totall entries) or until the deadline has passed, which is Febuary 6th.
The first round of judging is on your pitch! After reading the pitches, the judges will allow 1,000 entries under each genre out of the original 5K to continue on. By the way, the pitch has a max of 300 words.
Next is the excerpts. This is a 3,000-5,000 excerpt starting from the beginning of the book, discounting title pages, acknoledgements, or any such thing. The first 3,000 at min and 5,000 at max words of your book. 250 entries only from each category will proceed to the next round.
Quarter-finalists round! You've made it! Now your excerpts and reveiws are posted for others to read, and Publishers Weekly now does the judging. Once they have completed judging, 50 entrants from each category progress to the semi-finals.
Semi-finals!! Pheww!! Can't believe you've gotten this far, have you? Out of 5,000 entries in your category, you've made the top 50! Big congrats. ;)
In this round, the top 50 entries are judged by a panel and they select THREE entries to proceed!!
Finalists!! Last round! Eeeeek! (If only I ever got this far.) Now, during this round the top excerpts for each category will be posted on the main ABNA page with links for the Amazon customer to vote for their chosen entry. Each contestant will also receive a review from a celebrity panel consisting of "at least one well-known author, one agent, and one editor."
Then the two winners, one from YA Fiction and one from General Fiction, are choosen.
But, Samantha, you haven't told us the prize yet!
Oh, whoops? Did I leave that out? Do you want to know? Reaaaallly want to know? Yes? Alright hold on 'cause you won't believe this. Each category winner gets a contract with the publishing company Penguin and a $15,000 advance. Yepp. You heard me right. An actual CONTRACT for your book! Congratulations, because apparently you have just made it out of a 5,000-person slush pile!
Yeah, so now you know. ABNA is an amazing chance for people to better their writing by hearing from professionals and having a chance at the gold medal. Which is obviously an actual published book by themselves. :P
I think I pretty much covered everything.. If you think you have a chance, sign up before its too late! Theres no obligation to publish with CS (CreateSpace) or pay or anything, its just sign up, write good, and have a little luck. The sign up process is very easy and there is even video tutorials on it, as well as a forum specifically for the contest if you have questions or need help.
Here are some links you might look at if you're interested, and I wish anyone luck whos participating this year or in future ones.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_Breakthrough_Novel_Award (If you just want some more info.)
https://www.createspace.com/ (Right on the homepage, top right corner, is a picture talking about ABNA. Click it and it takes you to the entry page and videos and all that, but you have to have an account first. Nothing to that but signing up.)
http://www.amazon.com/b?node=332264011 (Amazon's page announcing the event)
http://www.amazon.com/tag/amazon%20breakthrough%20novel%20awards/forum/ref=cm_cd_ecf_sap?_encoding=UTF8&cdForum=Fx6TTNZ0V5TDQ5 (Lastly, a link to the discussion page on Amazon specifically for the contest. You can also get to it on the bottom of the page provided with the previous link.)
Sincerly Reader, Writer, and Friend,
Samantha-Aniwaya
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