Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing announces English language literary contest

Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing has announced the launch of the Pen to Publish contest that recognises literary excellence in the English language. The winning author will receive a prize of ₹10 lakh, a print publishing deal with Westland Publishing for this winning work and one-on-one mentoring by a popular author. The winner will be announced in early 2018 at a popular literary festival.

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 per cent royalties on the sale of their eBooks. Currently, nearly 20 per cent 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.

The winner will be selected based on several criteria, including creativity, originality, commercial viability and quality of 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 VK Karthika, who is a publisher with Westland.

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.”

The KDP Pen to Publish contest is open for submissions of new English language books from all genres. Participants need to visit kdp.amazon.com to self-publish their book, and participate in the contest.