Pitch Perfect – Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award Contest

I stayed awake until midnight to enter my latest manuscript, “Aquarius Addiction”. That’s when they started accepting entries to the Amazon ABNA competition. 

Since they were only accepting 10,000 entries I figured they would be inundated and I would be lucky to get in, but it seems there hasn’t been that much interest after all. When one thinks of the millions of authors who must have published their work with Amazon on CreateSpace.com I would have thought they would easily get 10,000 entries the first day.

Upon reflection, I realize not every author has a completed unpublished fiction manuscript available, but anyone who has self-published and retains all the rights to their work can also enter. Entries close on March 2nd, 2014, so there is still time.

There are five genre categories and each author can only enter one novel. They are: General Fiction, Mystery/Thriller, 

Science Fiction/Fantasy/Horror,  Romance,  and Young Adult Fiction.

To enter, one has to submit a pitch (300 words or less), the first 5,000 words, and the complete manuscript.

The first elimination, results announced on March 17th,  is judged only on the pitch, judged on originality of idea, overall strength of the Pitch, and the quality of writing. . That means it has to be really compelling. Only 2,000 out of the initial 10,000 will remain – 400 in each genre category. 

The second round is judged on the excerpt, specifically 
a) Overall Strength of Excerpt, b) Prose/Style,

c) Plot/Hook, d) Originality of Idea. 

The top 100 from each genre will advance to the quarter finals. These excerpts will be posted where Amazon customers can download them, read them, and write a review on them.

To get down to the semi-finalists, Publishers Weekly will read, prepare a review, and rate each Manuscript on a scale of 1 to 5 on the following criteria:

a) Character development

b) Originality of idea

c) Plot

d) Prose/style

e) Overall strength of submission

Their reviews will be posted on each semi-finalist’s Createspace account on May 23rd, and finalists in each genre will be chosen by Amazon’s panel of judges by July 8th, 2014.

Finalists will be posted on Amazon and members of the public will vote to choose the grand finalist. He or she will win $50,000 plus a publishing contract with Amazon.

Genre finalists win $15,000 advance and a publishing contract with Amazon.

Quarter Finalists get a Publisher’s Weekly review that they can use in their marketing efforts. Others who made the first cut will get a review of their excerpt.

I think it’s well worth the effort and I’m glad I entered. Here’s where you go if you also want to try. 
https://www.createspace.com/
If you don’t have a Createspace login you can create one there.