Back in the day, there was a TV show called Bewitched. The main character was a typical suburban housewife who happened to be a witch. The woman who lived across the street had a habit of spying on her neighbors, and when she saw something especially odd going on at the Stevenses’ house, she’d screech her husband’s name to get him to come to the window: “ABNER!!!”
I don’t know why I thought of that when I was coming up with a title for this post. There’s nothing magical about the ABNA – which is short for the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award. Every year, usually in January, Amazon opens its virtual doors to 10,000 non-traditionally-published books in five genre categories: General Fiction, Mystery/Thriller, Science Fiction/Fantasy/Horror, Romance, and YA Fiction.
An entry consists of a 300-word pitch (or blurb), a 3,000- to 5,000-word excerpt from your book, and the full manuscript, which must be between 50,000 and 125,000 words. You must strike anything and everything from your entry that identifies the author: your name, any awards the book has won, etc. If you don’t, your entry will be disqualified. Continue reading “ABNA!”