Oh, the Suspense

Today is the day I find out if I make the second cut of Amazon's Breakthrough Novel Award.

The first cut was at the end of February and took the contest from 10,000 total entries to 2,000 (1,000 in General Fiction, 1,000 in Young Adult Fiction). It was based on a 300 word pitch. This cut is based on an excerpt of up to 5,000 words and takes the 2,000 down to a mere 500 entries total.

I made it to the Semifinals last year with the exact same entry. And, based on a video clip of the Penguin editors talking about their top picks, I was in the Top 5. But at least some of my fellow semifinalists from last year didn't even make it through the pitch round this time. So...I could just as easily go on to the quarters as I could get cut. There's just no way to predict the results. The judging panel is new this year and I'm working on the assumption that my Amazon Vine reviewer will be different than last time. Responses to stories (in any form, not just books) is so subjective that, well, who knows?

Here's me hoping and trying to exercise some semblance of self-control by not reloading Amazon's pages every half hour (I'm doing good so far)...