The Short-Form Writing Competition on Gather.com
Winning Submissions to be Sold
on Amazon.com Through Amazon Shorts Program
We're thrilled to launch our newest Gather.com writing competition in which unpublished authors can compete for the opportunity to have their work featured and sold on Amazon.com through the Amazon Shorts program.
Introduced last summer, Amazon Shorts offers an entirely new way for customers to enjoy their favorite authors and to sample the work of new authors through exclusive short-form literature, sold on Amazon for $0.49 each. Amazon Shorts have no printed editions and are delivered digitally.
Starting today, Gather.com will offer a first of its kind opportunity for non-published authors to participate in Amazon Shorts alongside bestselling authors like James Lee Burke and Jacquelyn Mitchard.
Today through Saturday, September 30, Gather members can submit 2,000- to 10,000-word original entries. Each month, the three highest-rated entries, along with a fourth entry selected by the Gather Editorial Team, will have the opportunity to be sold on Amazon.com!
How It Works:
- Email your previously unpublished fiction/nonfiction short (2,000 - 10,000 words) to amazonshorts@gather.com. Articles previously published on Gather are eligible for the contest, but please remove your article from Gather.com prior to submission.
- You'll receive a confirmation email and link to your entry when it's published by Gather into Gather's Amazon Shorts group. To complete the submission process, click the link in the email to join the Amazon Shorts group on Gather.
- Each contest submission will be "live" on the Gather site within the Amazon Shorts Group for a period of 14 days, regardless of the date it is published. During this two-week period, Gather members will read and rate the story. At the end of this 14-day voting period, each entry will be removed from the site.
- At the end of each month, all entries that were "live" on the site for 14 days will be eligible for the 3 members' choice winners and 1 editors' pick. The winning selections will then be submitted to the Amazon Shorts Team for final approval.
- Entries submitted after the cutoff period for each month will be automatically carried over into the next month's contest. For example, July submissions will be accepted today - July 31, August submissions accepted August 1 - August 31, and September submissions accepted September 1 - September 30.
- Approved winners will be announced on Gather.com and their winning shorts published and sold on Amazon Shorts.
Please note: submissions received between June 27 and July 5 will be posted for voting on Gather.com within two business days of July 5.
For complete contest rules, click here.
For complete submission guidelines, click here.
For complete contest calendar, click here.
Gather members, to keep up with the latest competition results, click the button below:
Not a Gather member? Click here to join the Amazon Shorts group.
rate
email
print
link to this page
Comments: 68
Can you provide more information on the methods used to calculate the winning entries? The contest rules state that a combination of article rating and number of votes will be used. Thus, will the Bayesian Estimate formula be adopted for voting? ..or some other method?
If you could provide more detail on this, it would be very helpful. Thanks!
If each submission will be voted upon during a 14 day voting period, shouldn't submissions be provided at least 14 days prior to the end of the contest?
While the submission date will be up to the member entering the contest, it would appear to be in their best interest to ensure they receive the maximum time allowed for viewing and voting (from other Gather members). Thus, realistically, isn't there only a two week submission window for each contest period?
I have only quickly scanned the material provided, so perhaps I am misinterpreting something.... Thanks again for the clarification!
In response to your last question:
Each entry posted will have its own two week voting period from the date posted by us on the site. The voting for each contest period continues for two weeks after the month end to ensure all submissions receive the same exposure (see below).
July:
Submissions Posted: July 5 - July 31
Voting: July 5 – August 15
August:
Submissions Posted: August 1 - August 31
Voting: August 1 – September 15
September:
Submissions Posted: September 1 - September 30
Voting: September 1 – October 15
"The 3 members' choice winners each month will be selected by number of votes * average rating during the two week period the submission is live on the site"
does NOT represent a statistically viable way of calculating votes in the type of rating system that Gather utilizes. Further, to multiply the number of votes by the average rating will, in effective, simply duplicate the rating that Gather already provides. Thus, this method would not even be mathematically correct. Also, what controls have been put in place to negate the potential for rating abuse?
In terms of people abusing the rating system, we have a great technology team that works tirelessly to prevent abuse of any of our quantitative systems on the site. Their abuse detection algorithms are confidential.
1) The scoring system you have outlined in your last comment differs from your prior response, but does help in defining the line of logic you are following. However, this 'accumulative scoring' method lends greater weight to the quantity of votes, than to the aggregate 'value' of each rating. For example, a single rating of '1' or '2' can tip the balance in favor of any article that is close in the standings. Thereby, minimizing the ability to select the article with the highest 'true' rating, based solely upon accumulated 'score'.
2) I assume from your response that the Amazon Shorts Administrator is a Gather marketing or editorial representative, and not directly associated with Amazon.com, Inc.
3) My question about rating abuse was not meant as a criticism of your team in any way. I was simply posing a question as to what controls are in place to ensure that ratings cannot be manipulated. Minimally, communicating with the Gather community your ability to identify the screen name or IP address associated with each rating would be beneficial to you, as well as the community at large.
This will be an exceptional benefit for Gather members, as well as Gather itself.
Uh... Toby Keith! NASCAR! Firearms!
Show me the money. Who gets the jing?
The contest rules do not actually say what the value of the prize is.
Please elaborate.
Magi
Amazon Shorts currently cannot be purchased in the EU due to tax issues.
Best of luck to all.
Magi
It just seems like if you post the entire story someone else could easily put claim to it, or use it without you knowing it. I spend a lot of time as I'm sure others do in creating writings that are unique. Just trying to be safe.
Thanks Wanda
Seriously, the rules state that the story submitted must first be removed from Gather. Will leaving it on Gather but 'for me only' - which means no one else can access it or read it - suffice?
Magi
1) Each story submitted will be published by the contest admin with the author's name listed at the top of the submission and again in a copyright line at the bottom.
2) Nicola, editing your story to allow only yourself to view it should work just fine. Good idea. We will of course double check that all submissions are not available elsewhere on Gather before we post the contest entry and will contact you if your submission is still visible.
As for the .49 exposure? What do you thinks going to happen? A publisher is going to log onto Amazon and pay 49 cents to view work, when they are bombarded with very high quality work from authors, writers, journalists, agents--- even bloggers--all day? And why would I pay to read the same stuff I've been (not) reading on gather for free? I'm with joonjab: I'm going to skip gather's latest ratings/popularity contest.
Wanda: how can gather be sure the work submitted wasn't stolen to begin with? A percentage of what's being passed off as "original" is pasted from other sources.
"Amazon Shorts Administrator "-- don't you have a real name?? What's with the coprorate entity persona?
Thanks for all the questions! To help answer a lot of them, including some that weren't asked, we have added an FAQ section. Click here to access that article.
It is indeed a fabulous opportunity - glall entrants and thank you Gather.
Happy writing.
Ludolf Grolle de Rochefort, Jun 29, 2006
It's easy to make enemies here if you happen to have a controversial opinion. That does not mean you are a bad writer, however. Conversely, there are plenty of people here who have "gathered" fans for themselves through various means, and those fans will vote 10s on everything their Gather hero writes regardless of the quality.
Since not enough people vote on articles here as a whole, there's no way for the law of averages to get past the inherent biases that now drive the system. Only anonymity would ensure a somewhat impartial vote.
There has been some discussion about what system we will be using to determine the members' choice winners in the contest each month. Earlier in this comment thread we told you that we will be using a system of average rating * number of votes to determine a total score. I'm afraid we have oversimplified our answer, and while average rating and total votes are the primary factors used in our calculation, we are also using a standard weighting system to normalize the scores. To ensure fair results we are not publishing the calculation. Please email us if you have any further questions regarding the voting and good luck!
We have thought about this issue, as a couple people have mentioned it. However, not all pieces submitted to the contest are fiction. Since the rules do not require an entrant to mark "ficion" or "nonfiction" and since the Administrators do not read each piece thoroughly prior to posting, it is sometimes difficult to determine the piece's intended genre. Therefore, in an effort to give equal "tagging" to each piece, we have decided to use a handful of the same tags on each Amazon Shorts entry.
Hope that helps!
ALL of us are getting these run-by 1-votes. All you can do is network. I am new to Gather, came here just for the contest.
I have used grassroots outreach and networking to get people to read my work and vote on it as they would see it to be.
It's about exposure - get your story more exposure here in hopes that you can get it exposure on Amazon Shorts.
And, then again, there are hundreds of other writing competitions (granted, those often charge money for entries).
There's plenty of places to go, that's certain.
check out who wrote the top-rated stories.
keep up the good work God bless all of you.
carolyn williams
Having done so, however, and having looked at the site and these comments, I have to weigh in and agree that what appears to be the rating system is fatally flawed. I'm not sure that I have a solution but for one thing, I believe that anyone who submits a story should not be allowed to 'vote.' I read some entries. I would have rated them if I particularly liked them. Unfortunately, I felt I could rate only one because I was not willing to give a high rating to something that I didn't think deserved it nor was I willing to rate any story low when there was what could have been an ethical conflict. Apparently, that doesn't stop many people.
I don't think that being published is a "bloodbath" though, particularly today when there are many, many outlets for writers. Making enough money from just writing alone, however, is worse than a bloodbath; it is reserved for a the few who hit it . And there are three elements to making it. One is perseverance, two is luck, and three is talent. I know many very good and prize winning writers. Not one of those that I know well makes a living solely from writing. In fifty years of publishing (whoops), there was perhaps one year I could have lived off my royalties. Fortunately, I had a reasonably remunerated profession that supported the family.
So please, relax, stop the unethical rating game and enjoy the process.