This is actually a pretty good idea: Touchstone Fireside, a division of Simon & Schuster, is sponsoring an online contest to find a new author:
A major U.S. book publisher is hoping its new Web-based writing contest can tap into the popularity of interactive competitions like hit television show American Idol.
As part of the "First Chapters" contest, aspiring first-time authors and members of www.gather.com can post manuscripts on that social-networking Web site, organizers from publisher Touchstone Fireside and gather.com said on Thursday.
If online readers like the manuscript's first chapter, the author is voted through to the next round. Two more chapters are posted and the public narrows the field in the same fashion.
After three rounds of judging, a winning manuscript will be picked from among five finalists in May. The winner will be chosen by representatives from Simon & Schuster, Borders bookstores and gather.com, Touchstone Fireside Vice President Mark Gompertz said.
The winner will receive $5,000, a book contract with Touchstone Fireside and distribution by Borders....
What a smart investment. For $5,000 and a little time, S&S is going to reap a ton of publicity, and perhaps find a talent they wouldn't have discovered otherwise.
"This is an experiment on a sort of needle-in-the-haystack approach," said Gompertz, noting the voting public could outdo publishers who have picked "a lot of great stuff and a lot of dreck."
And they're being honest about it. Earlier this year, I reviewed a book by a first-time novelist who had gotten a $2-million advance for his manuscript. With that kind of money involved, it's imperative that a publisher make the writer The Next Big Thing whether the public is interested or not. As it turned out, the answer was Not, and now the guy's career is probably over, because when you don't earn back your advance, it's always the writer's fault, rather than the publisher's stupidity.
I'm just wondering if the finalists are going to get Idol-style online critiques, and if so, who's going to emerge as the publishing industry's Simon Cowell. I nominate Miss Snark.
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