Amazon’s e-book publishing unit, Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) has announced the fourth edition of KDP Pen to Publish Contest that will start on December 10. The e-commerce giant in a release said that the contest has been conceptualised to recognise “literary excellence” among independent authors across genres in the English, Hindi and Tamil languages. Interested participants can publish their original and previously unpublished titles either in a short format (2,000 to 10,000 words) or long format (more than 10,000 words) on the Amazon KDP forum. The company adds that the submitted titles would be judged on several criteria including originality, creativity, quality of writing, and customer feedback.
Amazon further explains that for each language-format combination, up to five finalists will be short-listed, with three winners being selected from each segment. Winning entries in each language for the long-format category will win a cash prize of Rs 5 lakh and a print-on-demand contract along with editorial support from Westland Publications. Whereas, first runners-up (long format) will receive a cash prize of Rs 1 lakh each, while second runners-up will be awarded a prize of Rs 50,000 each. For the short format category, winners will be awarded Rs 50,000 each while the first and second runners-up will win Rs 25,000 and Rs 10,000 each respectively. All the winners will receive marketing support for the promotion of their winning eBooks on Amazon.in and a group mentorship session.
Speaking about the fourth edition of KDP Pen to Publish Contest, Amol Gurwara, Director of Kindle Content India said that the last edition of the contest saw over 1,000 of participants from different parts of the country. “The fourth edition of the contest will continue to celebrate the art of writing while bringing writers closer to readers. We think that the short format requiring only 2,000 words will motivate more authors who are sitting on the fence to take the plunge into self-publishing,” Gurwara added.
The judging panel for the fourth edition of KDP Pen to Publish Contest will include notable authors like Durjoy Datta and Anand Neelakantan for English titles, Divya Prakash Dubey and Anu Singh Choudhary for Hindi titles, and Charu Nivedita and C. Saravanakarthikeyan for Tamil titles. Interested participants can self-publish their books on the KDP platform between December 10, 2020, and March 10, 2021. They can then enrol their book in the KDP Select programme and include the keyword pentopublish4 in the book’s information.