On March 16, 2009 (Monday) Amazon.com will post the excerpts presented by the 500 writers who made the quarter-final round. There were approximately 10,000 entries in ABNA this year, so it is a huge achievement to make this cut. It was decided based on the writers' pitches of their novels and the strength of their excerpt.

Between March 16 and April 14 Excerpts and associated reviews will be posted at http://www.amazon.com/abna where Amazon customers can download the excerpts and write their own reviews. (Information on submitting reviews on Amazon.com can be found at http://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/guidelines.html

On April 15, 2009 Penguin will select 100 semi-finalists based on those reviews, among other things. Between now and April we all need your help. Get in there and read those excerpts, rate them, comment, make your voice heard, and support your favorites. Obviously I hope you read mine and give me a excellent review, but read as many as you can.

There will be 500 excerpts from the best of the 10,000 writers who entered. This will be some great writing. You may be reading the first chapter(s) of the next Best Selling Novel. This has been compared to the American Idol of writing because you, dear reader, not only get to review and critique the top writers – on May 15, 2009 you will get to vote on the winner. More on that later.

For now, get ready for some great reading over the next few weeks. Visit Amazon.com, sign up as a customer or log in if you are already a customer, review the guidelines, and get ready to read some great fiction. I'll post a link to my excerpt as soon as I have it. You can also friend me on Amazon.com through your customer profile.

Http://www.amazon.com/abna

Two days left in the first round. On Friday, February 20, 2009, Amazon editors will slash the ABNA contest entries from approx. 10,000 (we don't know the exact number) down to 2000 based solely on the strength of their pitches. This is the part of the contest that many writers dread the most: the Pitch.(insert gothic background music)

Writing a pitch, or query, for your novel is a world of difference from writing the novel itself. It takes a completely different skill set to write a 400 word snip-it that excites jaded editors, making them want to read your manuscript, then to write a 100,000 word story that will hold readers and keep them turning the pages.

You might think the two go hand-in-hand, writing is writing after all. If you can keep someone reading an epic you should be able to hold them for 400 words. Not exactly. In a novel, you want the reader turning pages, you want them saying they “can't put it down”, but inevitably they will. When they do you want them not to forget it... to pick it back up.

Authors spend a lot of time thinking about pacing: the ups and downs of a given story. We think about where to end our chapters, when to give the reader a break, when to keep them glued to the story. We build worlds the reader wants to visit, characters the reader wants to know. Those literary devices take pages and chapters to build. The reader becomes more and more invested in the story, the characters, the setting, and they return time after time to read on. You can't do that in a blurb.

Editors, on the other hand, don't have time to read thousands of novels a week, so you have to hook them fast and hang on. They are the browsers at the bookstore, looking for a good read. They look at the blurb on the back of the book. If it doesn't hook them, they put it down and look at the next book. If it does, they open the book and read a little. If they don't put it down, they buy it.

Most writers hate writing pitches, even more than writing a synopsis. How do you convey the intricacy of a 100,000 word ms in 400 words? So we all sit on the edge of our seats waiting to get past that dreaded pitch/query stage and on to someone actually reading and judging our “real” writing.

We will never know if we made it past the pitch stage and into the second round, where excerpts from our novels will be judged. We will only know if we make it to the magic 500 of the Quarter-Finals. Only those who pass both the gauntlet of the pitches and the rigor of the excerpt reading will know their pitches pulled them through. If I don't survive into the Quarter-Finals I would love to know if it was because of my pitch or my excerpt. Alas, Amazon has not set the contest up that way.

February 20 will pass, expert reviewers will begin reading the 2000 golden excerpts, and we will wait nervously for the announcement, “on or about” March 16, to see if we are still in the running.

Good luck to all of the entrants. Remember, the best way to beat the stress, and forget about the contest for awhile, is to keep writing. The first thing everyone will want to know when you win is, “What else have you written?”, so polish up that second blockbuster and have it ready.

A month to go before we hear anything on the ABNA quarterfinal. The discussion board at Amazon is settling in. The early stress of - “I screwed up my submission” and “Will I be disqualified if...” - is dieing down into finding new friends and networking with other writers.

Most people in the contest never come on the boards. There were up to 10,000 submissions, maybe a couple of hundred on the boards and of those less than a hundred post. Someone put up a thread to try and get an idea of who was on the boards, about 108 replies so far.

I find the Amazon discussion board to be clunky and cumbersome. Of course their main purpose is discussion of products and services at Amazon.com, so in that respect they are good. Relevant threads appear down below the fold on pages. You can read and comment.

It really isn't designed as a Forum, per se. It would be nice if we had a dedicated forum for the ABNA community, but using the existing system ties everything back into Amazon's overall profile / community. I'll get used to it.

There are many people who were in last years contest who have returned, and some who never left. It is a surprisingly strong community. There was a swirl of activity the last few days before the deadline, and I'm sure activity will increase as we get closer to March 16.

From what I understand, after March 16 our submissions will be reviewed and posted. Amazon community members will be able to view and comment on our work. I expect things will get very active then among the quarter finalists. The next month is a good time to make friends, and get to know each other.

I've added several friends to my profile. I posted a message about this blog and invited other bloggers to share their url. I had a few responses from others blogging about ABNA. You can find a link to their blogs below.

I'll try to get some interviews with some of the contestants, old and new, and post them here. Writing is, at times, a very lonely pursuit. It is great to be around fellow writers and enjoy the comradery and companionship.

Blogs:

Angela Baca
http://www.amazon.com/gp/blog/A2LS8A37M3C6P3/ref=cm_pdp_blog_blog

Steffan Piper
http://www.steffanpiper.blogspot.com/

Brent Billy Curtis
http://amazonbreakthroughnovelaward.blogspot.com/

I did an interview with fellow author Jasmine Bale for her blog. Take a look...

JB: First, thank you for taking the time for this interview. I know you have a lot going on right now. Let's start with that. What are you working on currently?

Max: The Underground Press is moving into ePublishing in a big way. Personally I have the first two manuscripts in the Ezekiel Strong Saga ready to go. I'm currently looking for a good agent/publisher to get it into print. I'm also working on a separate story with a character from that series.

I've taken on the position of editor and resident writer for The Underground Press as well. I've edited two eBooks, which are currently available on MobiPocket and Kindle, and working on others.

JB: What do you think the future of ePublishing looks like?

Max: I think publishing is following the path blazed by the Indie Music scene. Where we saw bands burning CDs on their computers and selling them directly to the fans, we are seeing authors self publishing and marketing their own books. The new tools and services are great - from Mobi, to Kindle, to BookSurge.

JB: So why are you still looking for an agent/publisher for the Ezekiel Strong series?

Max: I don't see Indie publishing replacing traditional publishing, just enhancing it. We see some bands stubbornly remain Indie, no matter how big they get, and others grab for the brass ring of a big record deal as soon as they can. It's the same in publishing. A big part of being "published" is the huge marketing network that comes along with the big boys in New York backing your book.

JB: Your first book, ArchAngelxx, was written for the new eBook market. What makes it different?

Max: ArchAngelxx was written for the net. It was never intended to be bound in paper. In it I leveraged the power of on-line media, which is hyper-links. There are links in the text that open expanded content the reader can access if they choose, or pass over if they like. It was a very tech driven story, so I also provide links to definitions of some of the technical terms and concepts. You can't do that on paper. Footnotes, and having to flip to an appendix, are cumbersome and pull the reader out of the story. In the electronic format, the flow is maintained naturally.

JB: Do you see eBooks becoming a new form of media?

Max: The possibility is there. Right now, big and small publishers are enhancing their lines by producing eBook versions of their printed books. Authors are publishing eBooks because it is faster and cheaper than self publishing in print. Basically the books are just electronic versions of printed books.

As eBooks become more popular, and eBook readers get better, I think a new form will emerge and writers will start producing content for the new media. There is so much more you can do in an electronic format than on paper. Again we can look at the music industry model. With the advent of CDs and DVDs artists began adding new content to their albums – video, pictures, all sorts of bonus content. They couldn't do that on vinyl or tape.

JB: Are you concerned about copy-write protection in a digital age? How are you going to protect your books from pirates?

Max: I think all of the concern over pirating is holding the big publishers back, just like it has the record industry. They seem to be scared to death they might loose a sale. I don't look at it that way. If I have a printed book I like, what keeps me from loaning it to you? If I pick up a book for a dollar at a yard sell, no one gets residuals. So what's the big deal with eBooks? The way I look at it - if you give your copy of ArchAngelxx to someone, they my be the first in line to buy my next book. I may not get paid for the book they read, without purchasing, but I get excellent promotion for all my other books.

I can understand the need for some protection against wholesale copying of eBooks, but we need to allow for sharing. I'm not sure how to do that. With MobiPocket you buy the rights to have the book on up to three devices. You can only read it on those devices. I can't give you my copy to read. I'm looking for a new distribution model that will allow sharing and allow for library copies of eBooks. Maybe as devices become more advanced and less expensive a new distribution model will emerge.

JB: Thanks, Max. We look forward to big things coming from The Underground Press in the new year, and I hope to see Ezekiel Strong on bookshelves soon.

2008

It's been a great year. In 2008 the underground press stepped into the literary world with the release of my first book, ArchAngelxx. We set up an ASP.net 2.0 website, an on-line version of the book, and published an eBook through MobiPocket Books and Amazon.com's new Kindle Reader. We also set up pages on MySpace, Virb, and Helium to promote my writing.

ArchAngelxx quickly became a best seller on the MobiPocket Books web site, and remained there for several months. Since then I've been working on another manuscript, Ezekiel Strong : Haunted. It is the first in a series of suspense/paranormal romance with a hardboiled feel. I also edited CybrGrrl, by Jasmine Bale, which was then published by the underground press on MobiPocket Books and Kindle.

The underground press also published an anthology of sermons this year for Christian Underground Ministries. The sermons were originally presented in the 1990's as part of the underground church, one of the first churches on the burgeoning Internet. Neolythic also completed an overall face-lift of Christian Underground Ministries' web site.

It's been a busy and productive year for me and for the underground press. I have Ezekiel Strong : Haunted complete and I'm currently looking for an agent or publisher to help get it into print. Book two of the series, Ezekiel Strong : Lilith, is also complete and ready for publication. Book three is under way. I'm also working on editing some more of Jasmine Bale's erotic stories for publication through the underground press.

The new year looks to be even busier than the last. I'm looking forward to big things in '09. The underground press will be putting out more eBooks on MobiPocket Books and Kindle, and I hope '09 will be my year to see that big New York book deal. I'll also be putting out a few eBooks with the underground press and continuing to edit and write articles for various sources.

Hope you all have a great New Year. Keep writing, reading, and buying books. Everyone is worried about the failing economy but literature is still the biggest bang for your entertainment dollar. Nothing can bring more enjoyment for less money than a good book. Remember to support your local book seller and your favorite authors.

Max

I just received the first fan art for my, as yet unpublished, book - Ezekiel Strong : Haunted. One of my crit readers finished her advance copy of the manuscript and drew a picture of Trixie - the heroine of the series.

Trixie by ~ Bloodrose904

I was searching for a cover image for the eBook Cybrgrrl and stumbled across Sexy Second Magazine which lead me to Stella Stapleton and her flickr site. She has some amazing in-world photography from Second Life. She has been kind enough to let us use one of her images for the cover. Stella owns Stella's Mall on Stella Island in Second life. She is also a fellow blogger, so hit her blog and check out her flickr page. She has some great stuff there. She is also in my friend list so check her MySpace ;)