ABNA

Tomorrow is March 12, and it's the day Amazon will announce the quarterfinalists in this year's Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award. The contest will be down to only 500 contestants out of 10,000 entries. I know those who made it through Round One are sitting on pins and needles right now waiting to learn if they advance or if they go home.

I entered ABNA this year with The Last Tontine Survivor, the same novel I entered last year. I was knocked out in the pitch round last year and so I re-wrote and improved my pitch this year. Or at least I thought it was much-improved. I was quite hopeful for this novel this year.

However, I was eliminated again in the first round this year.

But as usual, I met a lot of wonderful aspiring novelists on the ABNA discussion boards, which is a rich benefit of the contest. And it seemed like a lot of others are self-published, through Create Space or through one of the other many platforms.

My brother asked me last week whether I was really to be self-published. I told him of course I am ready because frankly it doesn't take much. With as little as a couple hundred dollars and manuscript, anyone can get published.

What I want is some editorial and marketing help to get my writing career beyond the starting gate. For me, I'm not sure self-publishing can do that for me right now.

Anyway, back to ABNA, I have a friend from my writing critique group who made it past the pitch stage this year and he is hoping to make the quarterfinals. It's a good novel with some great promise.

So, Good Luck, Michael. I hope you go all the way.

As for me, I will try in again next year with an all-new novel, which I am still working on. Perhaps next year at ABNA will be my year.

Thanks for reading and keep writing.

EDITOR'S NOTE:
My friend Michael Eldridge made the cut today and is a quarterfinalist in the 2013 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest. His novel is called Bad Karma, and if you go to Amazon.com, you can find an excerpt of the beginning of the novel that you can download and read.
Another interesting note. Our critique group, In Mysterious Company, has had an ABNA quarterfinalist in each of the last three competitions. Michael made it this year, Marianne Halbert made it last year and I was a quarterfinalist in 2011.
mbd