Amazon/Penguin Breakthrough Novel Contest Includes Some Traps
Amazon, Penguin and CreateSpace are sponsoring a contest for YA and General Fiction novels that are unpublished or self-published. Publishers Weekly is providing some publicity.
From up to 10,000 initial entries including a manuscript, excerpt and pitch, the 2,000 top entries will be winnowed to 500 quarter-finalists then to 100 semi-finalists then six finalists, three in each category. Entries open on January 23, 2012, and winners will be announced June 16.
What’s first prize? A publishing contract with Penguin that includes a $15,000 advance.
You might conclude that the advance is pretty lame and you would be right. But that’s not the only gotcha.
Gotcha #1 is:
Penguin will determine the royalty rates to be paid under the publishing contract, which will depend on the format in which the book is published and the projected print run. You may not negotiate the publishing contract with Penguin, and you must sign it “as is” upon receipt of the executable contract.
Gotcha #2 is:
If you are selected as a potential Finalist, we will notify you by phone or e-mail . . . . You will be required to sign and return an Affidavit of Eligibility, Liability/Publicity Release & Nondisclosure Agreement. . . . You will also be required to sign and return a contingent publishing contract with Penguin, which Penguin will countersign only if you are selected as the Winner.
Gotcha #3 is:
[I]f you are selected as a Quarter-Finalist or Semi-Finalist, you grant Penguin the exclusive first publication rights to your Entry . . . . If you are not a Winner and Penguin notifies you that it wishes to publish your Entry, you agree to negotiate the terms and conditions of a publishing agreement exclusively with Penguin for a period of 30 days after you receive notification from Penguin. If you and Penguin have not reached agreement after 30 days, you may offer the work to other publishers on the condition that before you enter into an agreement with another publisher, you will afford Penguin the last right to publish your Entry on the same terms and conditions offered by any other publisher, plus an advance against royalties 10% greater than the other offer. Penguin must communicate its decision to you within 5 business days after you have provided written notice of the other publisher’s terms and conditions.
Gotcha #4 is:
Manuscripts submitted as entries to the Contest cannot be actively shopped by agents during the contest period, which runs from January 23, 2012 to June 16, 2012.
Let’s pull this all together.
- Before you can be selected as a winner, you have to sign a publishing contract with Penguin. If you don’t sign Penguin’s contract first, you almost certainly won’t be able to say you were a finalist. (PG speculates that’s part of what the non-disclosure agreement covers.)
- You have to sign the Penguin contract as-is, with no negotiation or changes.
- You won’t get more than a $15,000 advance.
- Even if you don’t make it to the finals, if you reach the quarter-finals or semi-finals, you give Penguin a first and last option to acquire your manuscript. (There are ways out of this, but most inexperienced authors won’t be able to figure them out.)
- Your manuscript is taken out of circulation for 6 months, even if it doesn’t make it out of the initial group of entries. (Although the rules only restrict agents from shopping the manuscript and say nothing about author shopping the manuscript.)
There are several things not to like, but the biggest problem with this contest is the non-negotiation rule. Passive Guy would never, ever, ever recommend signing the most recent version of Penguin’s boilerplate contract he has seen without substantial changes.
“Potential Finalists” are notified on May 14, 2012, and given until May 21, 2012, – 7 days – to sign the publishing agreement and everything else.
PG suggests that unless a lawyer is lined up and ready to go ahead of time, most attorneys would not be willing to undertake examination of a Penguin publishing contract, an Affidavit of Eligibility, Liability/Publicity Release & Nondisclosure Agreement within that brief period of time.
And who knows what’s going to be in the Penguin publishing contract?
Will there be a warranty clause like that discussed in Strip Mining the Authors that means the winning author has to live on the $15,000 advance without writing anything else for two or three years? Will Penguin receive an option for anything the author writes for the rest of his/her life?
PG has no inside information on how this contest originated, who proposed it, etc. (and nobody’s likely to tell him after this post). However, somebody inside Amazon seems to have no problem promoting a contest that funnels young authors into no-negotiation Penguin publishing contracts.
Has Amazon reviewed the Penguin contract to determine that it’s fair?
Why not use one of Amazon’s in-house imprints to publish the winning manuscript?
PG has seen those Amazon imprint publishing contracts and, without violating client confidences, can say they’re much better for the author than any boilerplate contract Big Publishing is offering these days.
Given that Amazon generally treats indie authors as well or better than any other online bookseller and authors who have signed with Amazon’s in-house imprints usually gush like class nerds who snagged a date with the homecoming queen, this contest seems out of step with Amazon’s author-friendly policies.
PG wonders if whatever Amazon executive signed off on this thought about any of the serious concerns he raises here.
Here are the Amazon Contest Rules
Here’s a Summary of Prizes
Thanks to Mark for the tip.
I remember when the contest first came out. I thought it sounded interesting—until I hit the “No negotiation” clause.
Instant killer, for me.
I’ll tell you where I stopped. Pitch. I’m not jumping through hoops for anyone anymore ever. Those days are over, gone, finito, morte. The slim possibility of getting $15,000 and I have to write a PITCH? Ain’t happening.
How humiliating! You’re a dancing bear. You get up there in your best clothes and you tap as fast as you can and smile till your teeth dry out. “Be Bright!” “Sparkle!” And they’re bored before you begin. They have nothing but contempt for you. Your heart’s racing as, desperately, you push yourself onward. You think you have a shot, and they’re like the Kennedy daughter after the brain surgery.
Beyond that, I’ve been published by Penguin entities (Alpha books–a Complete Idiots Guide and I turned out to be the Idiot for doing it) and Berkley. I can easily say they were the worse publishing experiences of my career.
What kind of grim, psychologically disturbing contest is this?
I know this contest has been around for several years. I’d guess it predates Amazon’s in-house imprints. Perhaps no one at Amazon has re-examined Amazon’s role.
Writing competitions are notorious for this sort of thing. As a matter of fact, I think I learned as one of those standard writing advice things long ago: show, don’t tell; read the guidelines before submitting; and never ever ever enter a contest for unpublished works.
Even if it’s a legit publishing company, they’re using the contest to generate buzz for themselves, and nothing about it is to the benefit of the author.
This post is just another great reason why The Passive Voice is a gold mine for authors who want to avoid traps and make the most of their writing career. Thanks for posting this, PG!
Thanks for the kind words, Abel.
I wasn’t considering entering this year, but I have in the past, and it was that bit about removing the book from circulation that got me at the time, since I had an agent. It’s hard to see how this benefits the writer at all, since if your book is good enough to be published, it’s good enough to indie publish. I don’t know why anyone would sign up for this anymore.
Thank you so much for posting this! What is going on with publishers lately? It’s like the don’t WANT authors to publish with them anymore by pulling stuff like this.
When I entered the first year (which must have been four years ago now?) the big prize all the entrants were hoping for was the Publishers’ Weekly review promised for the quarter(?) finalists. The contract was ooky but, hey, who was going to get that?
Thanks for highlighting this, PG. Just curious, but what would stop an author getting as far as the final crop and then saying ‘I’m not signing, your contract sucks?’ If they’d made it to the select few that surely would be enough to kick-start offers from elsewhere, or even just generate publicity.
DWC – The author would be violating the rules of the contest, but there’s no penalty in the contest rules set out for doing that. Anything beyond going on Amazon’s contest blacklist would probably not be enforceable.
However, as far as the publicity is concerned, an author can only get as far as a “potential Finalist” before he/she has to sign a nondisclosure agreement that will restrict what they can say about their status.
As I understand it, the terms and conditions are such that simply by entering one agrees to sign such a contract if one reaches the shortlist.
As far as I remember, this has been the case with every one of these contests. I remember reading warnings about these clauses years ago. It’s no better now.
I had considered entering this contest, but after reading the fine print I realized that this contest wasn’t for me. It seems the big publishers are more and more self serving.
[...] First off, we have a competition I was going to enter, see the article about it here; http://www.thepassivevoice.com/12/2011/amazonpenguin-breakthrough-novel-contest-includes-some-traps/ [...]
Pengiun again. They’re such punks. Why is Amazon getting involved with this scheming publishing house?
Why do you think that Penguin is any more culpable than Amazon in this instance?
[...] IP lawyer has some serious reservations about the entry requirements for the Amazon/CreateSpace/Penguin sponsored Breakthrough Novel [...]
Unless one reads the fine print, the entrant may not be aware of these issues.
Seeing the chance for a $15,000 advance may make the other contractual terms
seem insignificant. Another good reason to read the fine print!!
On the other hand, I’ve read the other comments and this seems to be a
traditional contest. No one has complained before? Or have the terms of the
contest/contract changed in light of all the publishing controversy going on
now? This could be a desperate act by Penguin to acquire new authors. I’d be
interested to hear what Penguin has to say.
Kristen
I’m glad you mentioned this here. I wrote about it back in January for last year’s contest, but I don’t think it made a difference.
(that post is here: http://willentrekin.com/2011/01/20/what-you-need-to-consider-about-the-amazon-breakthrough-novel-award/)
Isn’t the problem with the scenario Dirty Whit Candy mentioned that authors have already agreed to the contract, just by participating? After one agrees to the TOS of the contest, one has agreed one has understood and agreed to the rules of the contract, one main one of which is that the contract is already considered and agreed to. Doesn’t agreeing to the TOS sign the contract?
Also, at least last year, the terms didn’t address digital rights. Penguin might now force ABNA winners to use Book Country to make the work digitally available for all anyone knows.
I don’t think anything is enforceable as far as Penguin’s publication agreement until someone signs it. Certainly, the way the contest is structured, entrants are pre-conditioned to sign the contract, but I can think of lots of ways to pull a book before the contract is signed.
So
“By submitting an Entry and if you are selected as a Quarter-Finalist or Semi-Finalist, you grant Penguin the exclusive first publication rights to your Entry.”
isn’t binding, you don’t think?
I don’t think a judge would require anyone to sign a Penguin contract they had never read based upon an Amazon click-contract accepting the rules of the contest. “Exclusive first publication rights” is not nearly enough detail to describe the publishing agreement.
If you want a chance to make that sort of thing binding, I think you have to include the provisions of the Penguin contract along with the Amazon contest rules or require a separate click to accept the Penguin contract after the entrant has had the opportunity to read the entire contract.
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I agree with the person who discouraged entry to manuscript contests. In spite of having done so once or twice in my 25 years as a published author, I can’t recommend it.
I disagree with the person who thinks this is a ploy by Penguin because they are ‘desperate for new authors’. There are new authors coming out of the woodwork. All Penguin has to do is look in that corner, where all the yellow envelopes are, or call seventeen agents who have not yet turned into publishers.
Or start something silly like Authonomy. Or actually read the pitches they get on a daily basis.
This contest is yet another remnant of an old model that is fast losing favour in the book world. Readers are deciding for themselves what they want to read, same as with music. Winning a lamely-conceived contest with trapdoor rules does not mean much to a reader, but it still might hold some promise to the totally green author. So they will get totally green work.
Who wants to be a judge? Have you ever thought of the poor souls who have to read all the stuff? Well – the first nine pages? Arrghhh.