There is a contest held by Amazon every year called the Amazon Breakthrough Novelist Award. They accept ten thousand entries. There are four rounds to the contest and the winner gets a publishing contract with Penguin and a $15,000 advance. The first round is based off of your ‘pitch,’ which I posted here about before. The results were posted today for the second round qualifiers and I MADE IT! They choose 2,000 pitches out of 10,000, so that means I beat 8,000 other entries. Un-freaking-believable. I was so sure I was out of my league, I didn’t enter until the last day because I wasn’t going to ‘waste my time.’ Now, round 2 consists of a sample of your manuscript being read by judges. Not sure what happens after that round, but again I’ve got that same ‘out of my league’ mentality, so I haven’t even researched beyond that. I do know towards the very end, the winners are chosen by reader votes. So, if by some miracle I make it even further, be prepared to vote if you read my book and liked it! But that isn’t until this summer. What a long, drawn-out contest. But a contest I’m still a part of.

Abna