Amazon and Penguin Group USA are now taking submissions for the second Breakthrough Novel Contest. Like last year, entrants will have to undergo several layers of juried evaluations (with judges this year including Sue Grafton and Sue Monk Kid), ending in a public vote a la American Idol. So if you're brave enough, dust off your moldy MS and send it in. The submission deadline is February 8th, so you'd better hurry.
GalleyCat asks the question of last year's Amazon winner, did it really break through? And concludes that, along with the $25,000 book contract and critical acclaim, author Bill Loehfelm's Fresh Kills sold at least 5,000 copies in hardcover (noting that 4,000-7,000 sales is a good standard of success for most literary novels, especially debuts by unknowns). More proof of Loehfelm's breakthrough status may be that Putnam signed up a second novel, Bloodroot, which they plan to publish late this summer, shortly after the paperback release of Fresh Kills.
Of course, the contest isn't without detractors: 2008 judge and member of the National Book Critics Circle, Darryl Lorenzo Wellington, came away a tad on the bitter side, saying, "The contest was intended for writers at the bottom of the literary food chain and cynically directed at the section of the public most susceptible to the culture of hype. Remember the pagan ethos of the reality show world: Reality contests reproduce 'reality' by intentionally making the contests less than fair. The final round in which the public demonstrates its critical acumen (which the contest has done nothing to sharpen) by voting amounts to a sarcastic egalitarian sham. American Idol is watched by millions of viewers. The Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award will never attract millions of readers, nor justify the fun and games by popularizing literacy, nor resolve the issue of a savvy contestant racking up dubious votes." So there!
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