The Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award is back. Amazon.com, Penguin Group (USA), and CreateSpace are back with the 2009 version of the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award. Here are the key dates -

• Ongoing: Visit CreateSpace and sign up to receive contest updates and submission guidelines.
• February 2nd to 8th: Submit your novel for the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award 2009.
• March 16: Quarterfinals begin, qualifying excerpts are available to read and review. Edit: this is interesting because in 2008, there was a contest for reviewers with a $2000 amazon gift certificate and an amazon kindle reader as prizes.
• April 15: Semifinalists are announced, early reviews provided by Publishers Weekly.
• May 15 – May 21: Finalist round begins, reviews by our expert panel are posted, and customers vote for the Grand Prize winner.
• May 22: Winner of the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award is announced.

More on the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award -

1. The inaugural edition was 2008, and Bill Loehfelm was the first winner.
2. Bestselling authors Sue Monk Kidd ( The Secret Life of Bees) and Sue Grafton (Kinsey Millhone Mysteries) will lead this year’s expert panel.
3. Several of the top 10 finalists have received publishing contracts - although the release dates are all in July 2009 etc. – wonder why the long delays. The winner Bill Loehfelm’s book Fresh Kills is already available (also on Kindle).

What really stands out for me (based on the snippet listed below) is that out of 5000 entries, at least 4 now have publishing deals. One in a thousand odds is much, much better than I would’ve thought.

… the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award launched in October 2007 and received more than 5,000 initial entries. Of those, excerpts from over 800 fiction entries were eligible for Amazon.com customers to read, rate, and review. Editors at Penguin Group (USA) reviewed the Top 100 semifinalists based on early customer reads and full manuscript reviews provided by Publishers’ Weekly. In March 2008, the leading Top 10 finalists were selected for the customers’ vote. A panel of experts–including bestselling author Elizabeth Gilbert, editor and publisher Amy Einhorn, literary critic John Freeman, and literary agent Eric Simonoff–also weighed in with their reviews for each of the top 10 novels. The top three finalists–Dwight Okita (The Prospect of My Arrival), Harry Dolan (Bad Things Happen), and Bill Loehfelm (Fresh Kills) traveled to New York City for the first weekend in April, where Bill Loehfelm was revealed as the winner.

I feel that the timeline is too proacted. October 2007 to April 2008, with books being published in July 2009 (for the three authors other than the winner) is just ridiculously long.

PW’s pimping Amazon and Penguin’s second Breakthrough Novel Award.

The grand prize is of course a book contract and a $25,000 advance.  The competition will be twice as stiff as this year 10,000 submissions will be accepted for review.  I wonder how many of those will be NaNo projects. Heh.

Congratulations to Jeff Loehfelm, winner of the Amazon.com Breakthrough Novel Award.  His book, Fresh Kills, was announced yesterday as the overall winner out of supposedly 5,000 entries which were narrowed down to around 800 in January and then to the top ten just last month.  Having been an entrant in this contest early on, I’m just glad it’s over.

And nothing against Jeff, but why am I not shocked they picked a mystery for the winner?  Kellerman, Patterson, Cornwell, Higgins Clark, Grisham….geez, this market is so saturated and yet people love a who-dun-it!  Boring!  I also hope that Penguin Putnam comes up with a better cover for Jeff’s book before it’s released.  The current one looks like something whipped up on Photoshop the night before.

But Yay, ABNA is over and now maybe the cat scratching eccentric over-the-top drama in the online forums will stop.  In the beginning I was so addicted to reading them everyday, but stopped once I was out of the contest.  Why I was addicted to reading posts from a bunch of bitchy writers who all thought they were the best out of the bunch, well…now that’s a real mystery!

I came across the article Amazon.com and Penguin Group (USA) Reveal Top 10 Finalists for Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award today and low and behold there is an Ypsilanti Man in the finals. Harry Dolan made it passed nearly5,000 submissions to become selected as one of the 10 finalists.

Excerpts of the top ten finalists manuscripts have been posted at http://www.amazon.com/abna and you are asked to read all excerpts (5,000 words) and post a qualified review in order for your vote to count. If you are like me you won’t bother with fairness and just read and review Mr. Dolan’s work which can be found here You only have till March 31st to vote so get on your Wireless Ypsi enabled laptop and write your review while you enjoy this fine day in Downtown.

The grand prize winner of the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award will receive a publishing contract from Penguin Group (USA), which includes a $25,000 advance. In addition, HP will provide the winning author with an entertainment technology package that will include an HP 50-inch Plasma TV, Digital Entertainment Center, HP Pavilion Notebook, HP LaserJet All-in-One and HP Photosmart Digital camera. All runner-up finalists will be offered a “Total Design Freedom” BookSurge self-publishing package from Amazon worth $2,400.

Harry Dolan Speaks About Bad Things Happen – Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award Finalist:
David Loogan is living a quiet, anonymous life in Ann Arbor, Michigan; he’s hoping to escape a violent past he would rather forget. But soon he befriends Tom Kristoll, the publisher of a mystery magazine, and one night Kristoll asks him for a favor — he needs help burying a body. Two weeks later, Kristoll himself is dead, thrown from the window of his sixth-floor office. A police detective — Elizabeth Waishkey — is assigned to the case, but Loogan is leery of telling her what he knows. He begins his own search for Kristoll’s killer. Before long, there are two more murders, and Loogan himself has become a suspect. Elizabeth eventually unravels the events that led to Kristoll’s death and discovers the secret of Loogan’s past, but she’ll need his help to confront the killer.

I certainly hope the killer isn’t from Ypsilanti, that would hurt my feelings.