Today, I’m exceptionally excited to announce Gather’s newest writing competition, one of our most promising programs to date: The Gather.com First Chapters Writing Competition. First Chapters offers thousands of aspiring, but unpublished, authors the opportunity to win a guaranteed publishing contract with Touchstone/Simon & Schuster, promotion and distribution by Borders, and a $5,000 cash prize from Gather.com. This competition will launch the career of one talented Gather member and introduce many others to the industry.
If you have a manuscript that you have been shopping around or perhaps one that you finished and tucked away in a desk drawer somewhere, the First Chapters Competition is an outstanding way to have your work read, and also to receive valuable feedback from both your peers and members of the publishing community.
The Gather community is truly at the center of this program. We have seen the power of our community when we gather around shared interests. When nearly 30,000 of us came together to explore politics, Senator Evan Bayh, former Speaker Newt Gingrich, and Governor Mike Huckabee all joined in the conversation there. When 8,700 of us gathered around food, we saw public radio’s Lynne Rossetto Kasper begin interviewing chefs from our food group on her popular radio show Splendid Table.. The Gather community is helping shape our nation’s political agenda. And we are collectively seen as tastemakers on everything from food to fiction.
That’s why, even if you don’t have a manuscript of your own, there is an important role for you in Gather’s First Chapters Competition. Simon & Schuster has chosen you to help pick one of their next authors. As a Gather member and lover of quality fiction, reading and rating the entries is key. It’s up to you to help us discover that one writer who deserves his or her big break. So check back regularly as manuscripts will be submitted and posted daily. Discuss your favorites. And make sure to share this opportunity with others.
To our authors, we eagerly await your submissions. To our readers, we are excited to have you help select Gather's finest writers. The next bestselling novelist is among us! Thanks for all you publish and contribute, from myself and the entire Gather Team.
You can learn more about this exciting new competition by joining the firstchapters.gather.com group.
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Comments: 69
David- community members, Gather's editorial team, and a panel of judges all play a role in selecting a winner. Details on the selection process are in the First Chapters Official Rules.
"One Click, One Vote to Publish a Winner" if you would like to forward that to them as well.
Also I read the note that if there are less than 200 submissions meeting the guidelines that Simon & Schuster do not have to award the prize, so would that mean there would not be any finalists getting the $500 award from gather?
I am tired of being An outsider
"You must be 18 or older as of January 11, 2007 and must be a legal resident of the United States or the District of Columbia to be eligible to enter."
no offense but you should not take offense when you are participating in something US based.
Flit- Our CFO, Susan, will be publishing an article soon about our plans and schedules for international payments. We will also begin to have contests in other countries once we achieve critical mass in each.
also I am glad to see Tom gets heckled in his articles too... no one is safe from it on Gather.
Good luck and I hope there is a fair shake for all that enter!
I recently completed a novel that I'm getting ready to query. What concerns me is if I enter the contest S&S retains first rights. It restricts my rights to shop my ms. elsewhere until it is eliminated from the contest under what I perceive as nebulous terms.
It would be great to see the contract on the web before the contest starts.
This is a problem with Gather in general. The League just posted The Problem of Gather Points and Ratings. We hope you'll join us in discussing this concern about a potential flaw in Gather.
so much expectation then they let you down with crap like 'US residents only'
i am not a happy camper right now.
Maureen
I'm the author of Rarity from the Hollow, which was published in July, 2006, as an ebook by Fat Cat Press. In the rules, I noticed that vanity and self-published novels were eligible by exclusion. My contract included an exit proviso in the event that I'm offered a contract by a traditional (paper) publisher. Am I eligible to enter with this novel?
It's received several powerful blurbs, three glowing book reviews, and won a competition that recognized 2006 releases. Please see the following links.
www.fatcatpress.com
www.wingspanquarterly.com
www.okalrel.org/lynda_reads/2006/11/rarity-from-hollow-by-robert-eggleton.html
www.specficworld.com/books/index.html
www.baryon-online.com/baryon103/rarho.html
http://www.missourireview.com/tmr-blog/?p=310
http://katlynstewart.com/author.htm
http://www.booksforabuck.com/sfpages/sf_06/rarity_hollow.html
http://myshelf.com/backtoliterature/column.htm
Thanks,
Robert Eggleton
There have been other contributors that were not mentioned above so as to eliminate redundancy of content. If you are one, please do not feel slighted. I appreciate your contribution and so do maltreated children.
Won't the U.S only policy take away the US feeling from the Gather Community? It's as well that M/S. Simon & Schuster would like to unearth an unpublished American novel for its commercial exploitation. But, is it okay for Gather to partner this discriminatory program that negates its very spirit? It's for Tom Gerace to prevail upon M/S. Simon & Schuster to make the competition open to all Gatherers failing which the divisive exercise should be scrapped altogether. Otherwise, Gather would allow itself to be branded with the American hegemonic tag.
Our First Chapters team is collecting all of the questions about the competition posted here (requests to review the contract, publishing terms, eligibility requirements for past publishers of either non-fiction or vanity press titles) and will post additional information as updates in the firstchapters.gather.com group to ensure that everyone has good, consistent answers.
Good Luck to All Who Enter.
"must be a legal resident of the United States or the District of Columbia to be eligible to enter".
out siders are not permitted to participate in contest ,it is not fair.jivan
However, if the reason for excluding the non-U.S citizens from the show is really about the difficulty that Gather might encounter in giving away the prize monies to the winners, here is an idea.
The competition can be thrown open to all those from the "other countries" who are willing to forsake their claim for the Gather prize monies. After all, the true reward for any writer is the opportunity for his or her work to be read by as many. Hope, this suggestion merits First Chapters' favorable consideration. I am really keen to enter the competition with my "Jewel-less Crown:saga of life" which was self-published in India.
We have posted a separate article to answer some of the most frequently asked questions. We will continually update this article as new questions come in.
Some of you have asked about this contest only being open to U.S. residents. The laws governing content & copyrights vary from country to country. The First Chapters contest is governed by the contests and sweepstakes laws specific to the United States. Thus, we are not able to accept international entries.
In the future, however, Gather does plan on having separate writing competitions for specific counties with large Gather.com memberships.
All the best to the participants. I'm looking forward to being a part of this historical event.
Spicy