Tipsy Tuesday

I'm about a week late in passing this info on, but I guess that's what happens when I only do tips once every seven days...

Amazon has announced the Second Annual Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award Competition--a contest intended to identify the "next great novel."

Here's how the contest works:

Entries of unpublished, English-language, fiction manuscripts will be accepted from February 2, 2009 until February 8, 2009 or until 10,000 entries have been received, whichever comes first. The contest consists of four judging phases by expert reviewers, publishing professionals, and Amazon.com customers.

Initial Round: Expert reviewers from Amazon will select 2,000 submissions from the 10,000 initial entries based each novel's "pitch." (So you really need to know how to write a gonga pitch...) The 2,000 entries will then be rated and given two excerpt reviews from Amazon Editors and Amazon Vine Reviewers.

Quarterfinals: Excerpts of the 500 are displayed on Amazon.com along with the reviews from the previous judging round. Publisher's Weekly will read, rate, and review the 500 remaining full manuscripts.

Semifinals: Penguin Group (USA) will read and rank the 100 semifinalists, taking into consideration the reviews from the two previous judging rounds.

Finals: The three remaining manuscripts will be reviewed by industry experts, including authors Sue Monk Kidd and Sue Grafton. Amazon.com customers will select the Grand Prize Winner, who will be announced on May 22, 2009.

So, gentlemen (and ladies), start your engines. For more information, go here.