Amazon Breakthrough Novel Awards extract sightingsYesterday I was emailed by an ABNA cyber friend, Dwight Okita, to tell me that some of The Chosen One Thousand had been loaded on to the site, nineteen days before they would be officially available. To see them, you just had to go to Books and type ABNA into the search box.
Huge excitement - Trav Zander was not there, alas, but so far only about a hundred were. And you could download them for free and read them!
Or you could, if you lived in America.
Anywhere else, and you couldn't.
Then Josie added the White House as her billing address, and was able to download! I followed her example, using Amazon's Head Office address in Seattle as my cyber piede-a-terre. You can see it in the picture. (I'm right at the top, the middle window. Stunning view). Result!
But will anyone in England be prepared to do this to vote for me? Something tells me the shortlist will be exclusively American...
UPDATE 28/12/07 Amazon noticed that we'd noticed the list, and removed it and the extracts we'd downloaded. They haven't removed my virtual address in America as yet...
Lexi,
ReplyDeleteWell, you know you've got this American's vote. And if anyone needs an address in the ol' USA, I'll try to scrounge up some neglected ones.
This one will be available soon:
2596 E Camelback Rd
Phoenix, AZ 85016
It is currently my place of employment, but they are going to be tearing it down to put up a midrise building. As of January 31 we are scheduled to be out here and I most likely will be looking for job. If you need a stateside publicist, let me know!
Alan
Alan, this sounds rather alarming news. I do hope it works out okay. One doesn't really want that sort of extra time to spend on one's writing...
ReplyDeleteThanks for your American vote! (If I qualify, of course).
Alan, I agree with Lexi, this is most alarming news. After you entertained them in LV they're booting you? That is wrong, wrong, wrong.
ReplyDeleteLexi - are you worried about the Amazon thing? Do you think it means US entrants have an unfair advantage?
ReplyDeleteAlan - hope everything works out for you.
I don't know, Vis - would Amazon be so unfair as to invite other nationalities to enter, then not allow them to review or vote?
ReplyDeletePerhaps they just haven't set up the system yet. But it's only 17 days away...
The thing is, they don't answer questions - I emailed a month ago, and again last week - nor do they keep entrants informed. They haven't appeared on the forum for weeks. So speculation runs rife.
It depends how extracts are displayed, too. Looks like they'll be in alphabetical order by title; but maybe they'll also be available in Publishers' Weekly merit order. Or number of reviews.
Still, no point fretting. I may not get into the 1,000, after all!