ALLi News Editor, Dan Holloway
It’s always a pleasure to share some encouraging news that will pique the interest and get the juices flowing for a large number of you. And I get to round out this week with the news of a competition that’s open to everyone based in the United States. The Vellys Awards, as Amazon would like us to know it affectionately, is a brand-new competition based on its Kindle Vella format. Entries are open until August 20. Prizes total $62,000 and include a first-time author award of $15,000 and a grand prize of $25,000.
Kindle Vella is Amazon’s platform for serial fiction, and the Vellys have been launched to reward that way of presenting your story. The judging criteria are what we are used to from Amazon’s storyteller awards. Stage one, the big sift, is carried out by readers. Those with the most readers and followers will go on to the next stage where the actual judges choose the final winners, which, of course, makes shrewd marketing as much a skill being rewarded as writing.
I highly recommend, as always, that you check out the entry criteria, but the key things to draw your attention to are these:
- At the time of entry, the story must be an original title that is exclusive to Amazon.
- We will not accept nonfiction, poetry, fan fiction, children's stories, or erotica.
- Stories should, by the closure date, have ten episodes and at least 10,000 words.
The first of these is defined as meaning:
- The story is not available anywhere else for the period of the contest,
- It should not be subject to a publishing agreement, or
- It should not have been previously published in any other language (entries must be in English).
Happy writing and good luck.
