Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing has announced the launch of the Pen to Publish contest that recognizes literary excellence in English language. The winning author will receive a prize of ₹10 lakh, a print publishing deal with Westland Publishing for this winning work and 1-on-1 mentoring by a popular author. The winner will be announced in early 2018 at a popular literary festival.
The winner will be selected based on several criteria, including creativity, originality, commercial viability and quality of free essay writing. Five finalists will be short-listed and one final winner will be selected from this group. The judging panel for the contest includes international best-selling authors Joan Collins, Chetan Bhagat and Ashwin Sanghi. It also includes best-selling KDP author Sundari Venkatraman and V.K. Karthika, who is a publisher with Westland.
Authors can participate in the contest by publishing their books using Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP). KDP is a fast, free and easy service for authors to self-publish their books in digital format to a global audience and receive up to 70% royalties on the sale of their eBooks. Currently, nearly 20% of the Top 100 books on the India Kindle Book Store are self-published through KDP. “The contest aims to not only celebrate great stories but also make them available to a global audience” said Sanjeev Jha, Director – Kindle Content, India.
According to bestselling KDP author Sundari Venkatraman, “KDP helped me to achieve my dream writing career. I am now a published author with readerships of tens of thousands across the globe. I believe the contest will open the doors for more aspiring authors to find similar success.”
Ashwin Sanghi, prominent Indian author of best-sellers like The Rozabal Line, Chanakya’s Chant added, “As an author who started out self-published, I believe that this contest is a terrific opportunity for many aspiring authors to be discovered.”
