Why else would Amazon and Penguin have started up a contest to discover the Amazon Breakthrough Novel? If literary agents were doing their jobs well, there'd be no need to circumvent the normal chain of acquisition.
Russell Grandinetti wants Amazon customers to have an exciting and significant voice in the process of discovering a new novelist. Ah, sure and if they've discovered my novels, they've found what they're looking for. No need to look further, Amazon.
There's nothing on the Amazon site at the moment to tell an aspiring novelist how to enter the contest, so it would appear that the rules of the game are still being written. According to news reports, there's to be no entry fee and authors have until 5 November to submit their English language tomes.
Those who Amazon labels as "leading customer reviewers" get the first look at the slush pile, rather like a bank of interns at a typical agency. Then literary types like Elizabeth Gilbert, who wrote a memoir, and John Freeman of the National Book Critics Circle will sort through what's left. Just in case literary agents do actually have a clue as to what makes for a top-selling manuscript, Janklow & Nesbit's own Eric Simonoff will have a say in what takes the prize. A case of Amazon and Penguin hedging their bets, perhaps?
With an advance of $25,000 promised, anyone who knows how publishing works would also be asking if Mr. Simonoff came along with the total winner's package, to protect the interests of the winning author.
What sort of sales are they expecting? Better than the Touchstone "First Chapter" winners, according to Tim McCall of Penguin. The Amazon rankings for Touchstone's first and second place finishers are not in the best-seller territory, but Penguin expects their blue ribbon pick will enjoy better sales because they plan to promote the debut novel. Heavy promotion is more desirable than a big advance, especially if the debut author would like a decent contract for the second and subsequent works.
Gather.com is going with their crime novel contest again, in conjunction with Borders, but they're sticking with their panel of published authors to choose the manuscript. Again, members of the website will be slush killers. The advance of $5,000 is paltry, to be sure, and getting a publishing deal through Borders doesn't sound as promising as having a novel printed by the likes of Penguin.
In its own way, the focus group has come to publishing. The question is, will it be more effective at picking marketable novels? Are literary agents facing extinction? Where and how, exactly, do I submit my manuscript?
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