I entered my novel, This Is Where I Came In, in Amazon's annual Breakthrough Novel Award competition several weeks ago. They accepted five thousand entries and then started the winnowing process. Today (Feb. 24) they picked the top one thousand, eliminating 4,000 hopefuls. I'm happy to say that I made the cut! The next step will further narrow the field to 500; that result will be announced on March 22nd. While I don't hold much hope for winning the contest, I've found that entering such competitions does some beneficial things for a writer. It forces you to come up with a brief summary of your book, something that is much harder than it seems. If you only have 300 words to hook someone's attention and make them want to read your story, what do you say? How much plot do you give away? You begin to realize how difficult it is to write the blurb for a book cover, those few words which often make the difference between a sale and a rejection. Honing a pitch is crucial if you ever intend to try to get a literary agent or get an editor to read your stuff. You must learn to briefly tell what your book is about, why it's worth reading, why it's different from other books, who the audience is, etc. It's a lot to sum up in 300 words. Try it.
Meanwhile, I'll be trying not to think about March 22nd.
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