Sunday, January 20, 2008

Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award

It's being a long winter here in Billyland, but a welcome ray of light has peeked through. My novel, Hoodoo, is a semi-finalist in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award.

I don't particularly believe in contests, and I'd completely forgotten I entered this one. But I gotta say, I'm tickled. This one's an interesting contest; it gives at least a portion of the power to the unwashed masses - you know, readers - in addition to the usual few who decide what makes it into print.

The novel will now get a full review from Publisher's Weekly (that would be the usual few), and is in the running for a publishing deal from Penguin.

But one of the factors that will decide whether Hoodoo makes it to the next level will be reviews from actual, real-life readers.

If you wanna have a say, go to my Amazon page, click the download button, and read the excerpt. Don't worry, it's a short excerpt. If you like what you read, write a glowing review. If you don't like it, write a nasty review. Write whatever you like! It's the Internets!

If you write a few good reviews, there may be something in it for you. According to Amazon: "The three customers who provide the most high quality reviews will be qualified to win one of three customer prizes, including an Amazon kindle reader, $2000 in Amazon gift card value, and an HP photo printer. Learn more at www.amazon.com/abna."

All in all, it's probably all about driving more traffic to Amazon's site so they can sell more stuff. The wheel turns and we all do our part.

But I still think it's pretty damn cool.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

That's absolutely fantastic! Congratulations!

By the way, I just wanted to let you know that I'm back. I had Novelist in Training, but the site was hijacked a year ago (which is why the link now takes you to a page full of ads). I'm now located at http://booklady.wordpress.com, if you're curious.

anne said...

Hey, that's fantastic news! I haven't had time to read the whole thing yet, but I have started, and I love the style - it seems very energetic, or something like that. Make sense?
Also, I'm in awe: it's so different from the style of your writing on here...

Chemical Billy said...

Booklady! Welcome back. I've given you some linky goodness.

Anne, thanks!