Tomorrow, I'm going to enter my novel into the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award Contest. They are accepting 5000 entries per genre, which means that if I manage to enter (maybe 5000 people will manage to get their applications in before I do), I won't have much of a chance of winning.
Each category has 2 grand prizes, and three first prizes. There are a total of 500 second prizes, and 2000 third prizes for the entire contest. I do not have high chances of getting any prize, and yet I'm going to enter anyway. I have nothing to lose, everything to gain, and even if I make it past the first elimination round, I'll feel good.
In round one, they read the pitch (up to 300 words), and advance the top 1000 entries to the next round. So I have about a one in five chance of making it to round two. If I don't make it past the first round, I'll be a bit sad, I think, but I'm going to try anyway. Round I ends on February 21st. Wish me luck :)
I entered! I woke up at 6am. I was afraid that it would fill up immediately, but it hasn't filled up yet, and apparently never filled up last year, so that is good news. I only sort-of understood the numbers at first. There are a total of 10,000 possible entries in the contest. Up to 20% of the entries will move on to round two. Of the two thousand that make it to round two, a quarter of them can get a second prize. If I make it through any of the elimination phases, I doubt that I have a chance of making it past second prize. That said, second prize would be fabulous - it's a "Publishers Weekly manuscript review of each Quarter-Finalist's respective Manuscript" which can be used for marketing and promotion purposes. This is a fabulous prize, though it has no cash value. As an unpublished or self-published author, this kind of review cannot be purchased.
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