Amazon.com and Penguin Group (USA) Announce Fourth Annual Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award Competition

Two grand prize winners, one for general fiction and one for best young adult novel, to be published by Penguin Group (USA)

Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) and Penguin Group (USA) (NYSE:PSO) today announced the fourth annual Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award competition, the international competition seeking the next popular novel. Due to the popularity of the additional young adult category in 2010, the competition will again award two grand prizes: one for general fiction and one for best young adult novel. Each grand prize winner will be published by Penguin Group (USA). The 2011 competition will again be open to unpublished and self-published novels. Writers around the world are encouraged to begin preparing their manuscripts for entry into the competition, which will launch on Jan. 24, 2011.

"The Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award is a great way for unpublished or self-published authors to reach an even wider audience for their work," said Jeff Belle, Amazon.com's vice president, U.S. Books. "We are looking forward to working with Penguin again on the contest and seeing a new crop of books by talented authors."

"Penguin is delighted to be the publishing sponsor of this contest for the fourth year running," said Tim McCall, Penguin's vice president of Online Sales and Marketing. "Our mission to discern, nurture and amplify exciting new voices is being served by the talented writers that have entered the competition."

Eligible writers with an English-language novel manuscript can submit their work between Jan. 24 and Feb. 6, 2011. Submission details can be found at www.amazon.com/abna. Up to 10,000 total initial entries will be accepted, with up to 5,000 each in the general fiction and young adult fiction categories. Amazon.com editors will select 1,000 entries from each category to advance to the next round. In the subsequent round, Amazon.com editors and at least one top reviewer on Amazon.com will read excerpts of the 2,000 entries and narrow the pool to 500 quarter-finalists (250 in each category). Reviewers from Publishers Weekly will then read, rate and review the full manuscripts, and 50 semi-finalists for each category will be selected. Penguin editors will evaluate the manuscripts of the 50 general fiction and 50 young adult fiction semi-finalists, and choose three finalists for each award.

The top three manuscripts in each category will then be read and reviewed by two panels of esteemed publishing professionals. The 2011 panelists for the general fiction category are: Lev Grossman, author of the New York Times bestseller "The Magicians" and book critic for Time Magazine, literary agent Jennifer Joel of ICM and Marysue Rucci, Vice President, Editorial Director with G.P. Putnam's Sons. The panelists for the young adult fiction contest are: Gayle Forman, journalist and author of the New York Timesbestseller "If I Stay," literary agent Julie Just of Janklow & Nesbit and Jennifer Besser, Vice President and Publisher, G.P. Putnam's Sons Books for Young Readers.