Be Your Own Editor

I came across this contest being held by Crown (an imprint within Random House). It’s a promotional gimmick for a recent novel of theirs by Debra Ginsberg entitled Blind Submission. As the title indicates, it’s about the publishing industry. I haven’t read the novel, but it sounds like fun. And the contest, open only to unpublished, unagented writers, is worth entering.

Crown asks only that you read an excerpt from the novel and briefly describe your own manuscript. In return, they offer “a chance to win a consultation with a top New York literary agent or a free Advanced Reader’s Copy of Blind Submission. If you’re the lucky winner, you get a 30- to 60-minute phone or in-person conversation with an unspecified agent—which could be either great (if it’s a good agent who wants to hear about your manuscript and reads some of it before the conversation) or a waste of time (if the agent is doing it as a favor to Crown and can’t get off the phone fast enough). Certainly worth an entry, though.

Still, if you ask me, it’s pretty lame of them to offer as the second prize (to fifty people) a “free Advanced Reader’s Copy” of the novel. Advanced Reader’s Copies are, essentially, slightly spiffier versions of bound galleys, or the paperbacks printed before the book is proofread that are sent out (for free) to garner reviews, blurbs, bookstore orders, etc. Maybe the publicity or sales department has a bunch of extra ARCs they want to get rid of, but would it have broken their bank to give away a few copies of the finished book, which is, in fact, already in bookstores? Random House is only the biggest publishing house in the world.

Having said that, you’ve got nothing to lose by entering. But if you just want to buy the book, you can find it here. Sounds like a fun gift for any other writers you know.

A note: do yourself a favor and pay attention to promotions such as this. If your book ever gets published, especially if it’s self-published or put out by a press that’s smaller than Random House, you may need as many such book marketing ideas as you can think up, and you may have to implement them yourself.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 28th, 2006 at 3:59 pm and is filed under Book Marketing, Writing Contests & Exercises. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.