Gather.com, the social site for adults, has launched its second writing competition to find new romance novelists.
The promotion, in partnership with Pocket Books imprint of Simon & Schuster, lets Gather.com members submit manuscripts through Aug. 22 for a chance to win a publishing contract with Pocket Books and a $5,000 advance. Gather.com has 370,000 members, Carl Rosendorf, the president of Gather.com, said.
The winning book will be promoted at Borders, the official bookseller of Gather.com, but will also be sold at bookstores nationwide.
Borders is helping to promote the contest.
It will invite the 18 million members of its loyalty program, Borders Rewards, to participate.
Gather.com is also counting on the viral aspect of its Web site, which helped build interest in the first contest, which ran in January. In that contest some of the entries were so good that Touchstone/Simon & Schuster published two winning authors.
“As with anything we do, there is a viral marketing component – members telling members who tell other members – we promoted the viral component with the last contest and it was very successful – we received almost 3,000 manuscript submissions,” Rosendorf said.
The initial contest enabled Gather.com to more than double its size – prior to the contest, membership was around 100,000 – after the contest it was about 250,000, he said.
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