Writing Contests

This was just announced in the NYT and PW:


S&S Launches Writing Contest
by Rachel Deahl
Just because the Sobol Award is dead doesn’t mean Simon & Schuster isn’t opening its doors to unpublished writers. The house’s Touchstone imprint, which had planned to release the Sobol Award winners before that contest was shuttered this week, has unveiled a partnership with social networking site Gather.com calling for fiction manuscripts for publication.

The Gather.com First Chapters Writing Competition, which opens today, will call on the site’s members to evaluate manuscripts submitted through FirstChapters.gather.com. The five best-reviewed manuscripts will then be evaluated by a panel of judges that includes S&S president of adult publishing Carolyn K. Reidy; v-p and publisher of Touchstone Books Mark Gompertz; Borders CEO George Jones; and Gather.com founder and CEO Tom Gerace. The author of the manuscript chosen by the judges will receive a contract to publish his or her book with Touchstone, $5,000 and guaranteed promotion for the title from Borders.

When asked if the Gather contest was set up as a replacement for the Sobol Award, Kelly Bowen, a senior publicist at Touchstone, said it is not. "The Gather relationship has been in the works for a while and coincidentally was finalized around the same time as the Sobol Award cancellation."

Sounds interesting, sort of like American Title on the RT website, although the $5,000 prize is a bit low, and it doesn't say whether or not it's hardcover, paperback etc. Love the guaranteed promotion from Borders.

Anyone thinking of entering?

Thanks for reading!

EKM