Further to an article recently published advertising America's Next Author Competition today we provide details of the jury involved in the deciding the winner of this competition. Some of the details provided in the first announcement included:
The contest is broken into the following rounds:
Nomination Round: From October 9th to November 27th: During the nomination rounds, the public will have access to submissions while authors can enhance their profile page to win over fans and improve their chances of nabbing a nomination. Aspiring writers can continue to submit stories during the nomination round, but writers who submit early will have more time to garner support and increase their ranking. Readers can provide written reviews or quick star-reviews.
eBookMall officials will rank authors using an algorithm that incorporates ten distinct factors, including number of reviews, result of reviews, social media mentions (Facebook, Twitter) and news articles about the author and/or story. Ranking will be visible on the contest website and updated regularly. At the end of the nomination rounds, the jury will also select four "wildcard" authors to advance to the finals.
Finals: December 5th -- December 11th - The final 12 nominees (eight from nomination rounds, four wildcards) will be positioned against each other in a bracket system. Readers can return to vote for their favorite author as he or she goes head to head with another nominee. The three candidates with the highest score from this round will make it into the final jury selection.
Jury Round (December 11th -- December 18th) The members of the jury will read and review works submitted by three finalists and decide who will be crowned America's Next Author. eBookMall will announce the grand prize winner and two runners-up on December 18, 2012.
The official jury panel was released today, and is comprised of Autumn Stephens, Peter McCarthy, Sandra Poirier-Diaz, and Chauncey Mabe.
- While the submission period began on September 17, the official website went live earlier this week and votes have started pouring in.
About the America's Next Author Jury
Autumn Stephens is the author of the Wild Women book series and editor of two anthologies of women's writing: The Secret Lives of Lawfully Wedded Wives and Roar Softly and Carry a Great Lipstick: 28 Women Writers on Life, Sex, and Survival. A former book reviewer for the San Francisco Chronicle, she has written for The New York Times, SF magazine, and numerous Bay Area publications. She teaches private writing classes, leads writing groups for cancer survivors, and publishes an annual quotation calendar titled Wild Words from Wild Women. A graduate of Stanford University's creative writing department, Autumn lives in Berkeley, CA with her husband and two sons.
Peter McCarthy is the founder and principal consultant of McCarthy Digital, a boutique consultancy formed to serve the publishing value chain. He is a multi-channel marketer with 15 years experience in trade book publishing, working in roles from Editorial to IT and from design to marketing.He served as vice president of Penguin Group Online (USA) and was most recently vice president of marketing innovation at Random House, Inc. He was a driver of the first digital efforts of such publications as The Reader's Catalog, The New York Review of Books, and Granta.
Sandra (Sandy) Poirier-Diaz is the president of Smith Publicity, a book marketing company dedicated to helping authors create awareness about their books through media coverage. Smith Publicity has promoted more than 1,500 authors/publishers since 1997--from first time, self-published projects to New York Times best selling titles. Diaz has overseen the direction of more than 1,200 book publicity campaigns with tens of thousands of media placements in television, radio, newspapers, magazines and online outlets worldwide. Highlights include placements on the Today Show, Parade Magazine (cover), Wall Street Journal, Forbes, SELF Magazine and CNN.
Chauncey Mabe served as book review editor at the Sun-Sentinel newspaper in Fort Lauderdale for more than 23 years. Mabe has worked as a freelance journalist, ghostwriter, and "book doctor," and has written for the Chicago Tribune, the Serving House Journal, Perigee, and the Palm Beach Arts Paper, amongst others. For two years, Mabe was responsible for a daily books blog produced by the Florida Center for the Literary Arts.
"America's Next Author" is eBookMall's first contest for aspiring writers. For more information, visit www.ebookmall.com.
Lauren Covello
lauren.covello@smithpublicity.com
- Founded in 1999, eBookMall is a veteran in the growing e-book industry. The retailer offers digital books from the world's biggest publishers, including Random House, Simon & Schuster, and MacMillan. Books are available in PDF and ePub formats for Windows and Mac computers, Android tablets, dedicated eReaders, and mobile phones.
