About a month ago I submitted Jack Manley and the Warlord of Infinity to the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award. Every year Amazon opens this contest to 10,000 entrants, with the grand prize being a $50,000 publishing deal. With that on offer, as well as a host of very good smaller prizes and no entry fee, I would have been a fool not to enter.
The contest is judged in a series of five rounds. In the first round the judges read the author's pitch for every entrant, and narrow the field down to 400 in each category. (There are five categories in the contest: general, mystery/thriller, sci-fi/fantasy/horror, romance and young adult.) In round two they narrow it down again, based on a 5,000 word excerpt. Round three narrows it down further based on the entire manuscript, and so on until there's a winner in each category and an overall Grand Prize Winner.
Alas, I didn't make it to the second round. I'm not particularly upset about it; rejection is part of the game, and I feel that you have to learn to take these setbacks well if you're ever going to get anywhere. Not only that, but I also have to figure out why my entry didn't make it.
Unfortunately, that answer is all too obvious: I totally half-arsed the pitch. I put literally zero effort into it, simply grabbing my back cover blurb and calling it a day. There's a thread over at the forums for the contest in which people who made it to the second round are posting their successful pitches. I plan to spend some time going over those, and trying to come up with something better for next year.
Because yes, of course I'm going to enter again next year. I failed this time around, but that's okay. It's time to keep writing, keep creating, and plan for my next attempt. Like I said, I'd be a fool not to.
PROGRESS THIS WEEK:
The Lightless Labyrinth - 2,794 words
This is easily my best total since I started this blog, and made my resolution to write every day. For the first time, I actually did that for a whole week, and the results show. Even though I had one day where I only wrote 84 words (blame my interrupting wife!), I think I knocked out a respectable total.
OTHER TIME-WASTING ACTIVITIES:
What I've Been Reading:
The CRPG Addict blog by Chester Bolingbroke
Tarzan the Terrible by Edgar Rice Burroughs
What I've Been Watching
The Walking Dead season 4
What I've Been Playing:
Rogue. Looooooooots of Rogue.
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