ABNAguity

See, it’s like this… there might be a few of us ABNA junkies… wait… you might need a definition if you are new around here…

ABNA: Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award. The contest that begins every January and consumes the first 1 – 5 months of the year, depending on how far you advance. Note that it can also consume the 6th month, too, but I have never been a finalist.

So now that you know what’s what… I have been doing ABNA since 2010, which isn’t so long really… I’ve done three, coming up on my 4th. But heck, the thing only started in 2008, so I’ve done more than half of ‘em, right? I’ve got clout!

But more than clout, I’ve made a bunch of good friends who are ALSO ABNA junkies.

MUST. DO. IT. ALL.

Disclaimer: I am not JUST an ABNA junkie. I actually suffer from FOMS (fear of missing something) so am a joiner in general.

And there are discussion boards related to ABNA, so sometimes I hang out over there.

Well yesterday (note: this is where the actual blog begins, as opposed to the pre-information you needed just to follow the blog, but never mind) I was hanging out over there. There’s been some speculation about whether the contest would change this year. The speculation happens EVERY year, but this year there is reasonable reason—Penguin, one of the contest partners, merged with Random House this year (sadly NOT choosing the name Random Penguin), but part of the PURPOSE was to better compete with Amazon. (Ouch… business partner doing the nasty to smite you, eh?) So some of us feared…

I mean heck, we have an ADDICTION!

Gratuitous llama picture

Well anyway, we sneaky peekers SAW some stuff… and then they removed it and put up something else, and then they removed it. They are TOYING WITH US, MAN!

So the following may or may not be accurate and will probably be subject to change, but it LOOKS LIKE:


1) Contest opens January 14 and entry closes January 24. Note these dates are about 10 days EARLIER than last year.

2) We SAW (I swear it) that the GRAND prize (just one) will be a $50,000 advance contract.

Now for the past two years young adult and general fiction have been SPLIT and there were two grand prizes… this goes away.

BUT

It looks like the OTHER FINALISTS ALL get $15,000 advances… so five people get money rather than two, and one person gets a pretty nice deal.


3) Now SOMEBODY (not me) saw (maybe misunderstood?) the finalists might be from different categories?

Public service: Do NOT do this to your llama

But whatever the case, if you are interested in joining (and I strongly recommend it) there are 6-8 weeks to knock something into shape. They take books 50K-150K (or have in all past years) and take all ‘non obscene’ genres. (I don’t find erotica obscene, but somebody there does—I think this would also cancel out… maybe mutilation if it’s too graphic, incest or child sexual relations if it’s glorified, you know if you write on a fuzzy line)


I love this contest for the DEADLINE it gives me every January and for the writerly interaction in my life. There are also great threads for getting feedback on pitches. I’m sure I will be talking more of it as it approaches, but I wanted to give the heads up while there is time for you to do something about it.


UPDATE:  Contest still on but PENGUIN not participating... and it is YES on the genre thing.