Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award

cobsie

Wow - that is super fantastic! Really great news - congratulations guys! Good luck to you both.

pickarooney

Congrats to you both!

No such luck here.

EileenG

I've got to thank everyone here who helped me polish my pitch. Judging from the stanard of some of the ones who didn't get through, the standard this year seems to be very high, and I wouldn't have managed without so much help from you guys.

H. Flashman

EileenG wrote: »

It's that time of year, and the ABNA is coming up. I entered last time and plan to enter again.

The thing is, I don't know if I should reenter the book I had last time, which has had so much work it is scarcely recognisable, or a different one. I have a newer novel which is almost ready to go, and which I think has more depth (and action). But it is a follow-on to the first one, so might be harder to follow.

What do you think?

ok i guess i've arrived late to this convo but just off of this i would say ... I think you need to go with the first one. I've had a similar quandary which I’m not going into here but you need to have the confidence in the first book. If you don't have the confidence in book 1 go back into it, start cutting like a hairdresser on steroids and rewrite until you do have confidence in it. The rule is: if you read a particular paragraph/chapter and are not sure if it’s good enough it isn't. Cut it and rewrite, you will know instinctively when you have nailed it.

H. Flashman

i-digress wrote: »

A woman can never have to much validation

I'm undecided which chapters to put as my extract. The second half of my book is more exciting, but if I use that as an extract will the fact it's out of context hurt me? I dunno.

And writing the pitch is harder than writing the entire novel.

i haven't heard of this comp before but i say the extract always needs to be the start of the novel.

"And while she's waiting for a suitable ship, there are
all those delicious Earthers to feast on." --> Made me laugh

pickarooney

What's the next step? Do they read your 5000 words and pick the best 500? Did any of you get through this bit last year?

EileenG

Yes. They whittle the 2000 down to 500 by March 22, then post those 500 excerpts up on the Kindle section of Amazon.com.

I got that far last year, it was so weird getting reviews from total strangers on Amazon.

pickarooney

Does that mean they're publicly accessible or only visible to selected judges?

Memnoch

Well done guys and good luck in the next round. I ended up not entering this year but hope you two do well.

EileenG

pickarooney wrote: »

Does that mean they're publicly accessible or only visible to selected judges?

The excerpt is publicly accessible.

pickarooney

The third round qualifiers are supposed to be out today.

i-digress

It'll be late today, they'll only be posted once Seattle wakes up.

i-digress

Congratulations Eileen!

pickarooney

Congratulations both of you!!

Can we read the excerpts already?

EileenG

Thank you!

Any typos can be blamed on the bottle of Champagne I just drunk! Wheee...

Memnoch

Well done.

Hopefully you guys get some solid feedback on the full manuscript at the very least.

Best of luck in the next round!

davyjose

Congrats, I'm so impressed. Hope you guys go all the way.

I'll be first in the queue to buy a copy of your published books

EileenG

Just got my reviews. I heard on the Amazon Boards that there was war over one reviewer giving vicious feedback, and I may have got him, he was complaining about my title and spelling mistakes (like realise). But overall, the reviews were good, and I'm happy with them.

One reviewer said "I see this being a very popular book, maybe even a series." I'll take that any day!

pickarooney

Sounds like they have some clowns on the review panel if they don't have a basic grasp of English dialects Maybe i-digress was onto something earlier in the thread. How many reviews did you get in total?

pickarooney

There's some hilarious stuff on those forums. The ugly babby mommas are out in force.

davyjose

pickarooney wrote: »

Sounds like they have some clowns on the review panel if they don't have a basic grasp of English dialects Maybe i-digress was onto something earlier in the thread. How many reviews did you get in total?

The problem, it seems, is they have a grasp of the dialects, but not of actual English. Poor form.

I'm not a snob, and most of my favorite novelists are American, but when i read their mis[spelled]spelt words, it always ever-so-minutely disappoints me.

So when the situation arises whereby the proper spelling is regarded as incorrect, it bugs me.

BTW, my missus is American and whenever we have conflict about the English language, I'm always like "what's the language called -- English or American?" Shuts her up

The only thing we agree on is the English pronunciation of yoghurt... (yawgurt? WTF???) :pac:

EileenG

pickarooney wrote: »

Sounds like they have some clowns on the review panel if they don't have a basic grasp of English dialects Maybe i-digress was onto something earlier in the thread. How many reviews did you get in total?

Got two reviews.

I just saw a review that someone else got, and his work was torn to shreds. I'm amazed he's not bleeding.

i-digress

I got two lovely reviews! I got a couple of comments on typos, but I think that was because my excerpt wasn't in American English... One reviewer said they had to wrack their brain to give me things to work on

The forums over there are going crazy. One reviewer does seem to have been an unprofessional lunatic, but some people have gotten on their high horse over legitimate comments. Sigh.

Was very excited to see my book listed in the Kindle store. I called my husband in to point out that Amazon list me as: Christine Murray (Author). Unfortunately, only people in the US can down load the excerpts, which is a shame because I was looking forward to reading the other entries.

I can't believe that I've gotten so far. I didn't expect to get past the pitch stage.

i-digress

EileenG wrote: »

Got two reviews.

I just saw a review that someone else got, and his work was torn to shreds. I'm amazed he's not bleeding.

I think I know the one you're talking about. It attacked the author, not the book, which isn't on.

EileenG

i-digress wrote: »

I think I know the one you're talking about. It attacked the author, not the book, which isn't on.

Vicious though the review was, it was legitimate, and covered things I've said myself to this writer, I was just a bit more tactful (which anyone who has met me will consider a miracle).

Delighted to hear you've got a good review.

I wonder does anyone here have an American address which we could use as a base for downloading our Kindle excerpts?