A division of Simon & Schuster has agreed to publish the top three winners of the Sobol Award, offering advances of up to $100,000 for a controversial new literary contest for agentless writers that includes a $100,000 first prize.
“We were very impressed with Sobol’s plans to harness the broad reach of the Internet and through a very well-thought-out editorial process find three great works of fiction. We can’t wait to read them,” Mark Gompertz, senior vice president and publisher of Touchstone Fireside, said Tuesday in a statement.
Announced in September, the Sobol Award offers $100,000 for the best unreleased, agentless novel, with prizes of $25,000 and $10,000 for the runners-up and $1,000 each to seven others.
The award was created by Sobol Literary Enterprises, a for-profit venture started by technology entrepreneur Gur Shomron, as “a venue to discover talented, unknown fiction writers and help them get the recognition they deserve.”
Questions have been raised about the prize, especially its $85 entry fee and stipulation that Sobol officials would serve as literary representatives of the winners; industry policy prohibits agents from charging money to read manuscripts. Sobol says the fees are needed to cover administrative costs.
One critic, Robert Weil, executive editor of W.W. Norton & Co., said he was glad to hear that Simon & Schuster would publish the winners but added that he still disapproved of the contest.
“I feel sorry for the people who had to pay to get into this,” Weil said. “If Simon & Schuster can generate a lot of excitement and make the books successful, that’s great, but it also reflects a commodification of the business. It’s just treating books like product.”
“Having a deal with Simon & Schuster certainly makes this stand out from other contests,” says Paul Aiken, executive director of the Authors Guild, which represents thousands of published writers.
“But the downside is you don’t have any room to negotiate. In any contract, terms can be laid out in different ways. The details really matter.”
Brigitte Weeks, Sobol’s editorial director, said that the three top entries would receive $100,000 advances from Simon & Schuster for world rights, or $50,000 for U.S. rights only. She acknowledged that committing to one publisher could limit the advance for a promising manuscript but said she still believes winners will be better off.
The Sobol Award website (sobolaward.com) accepts up to 50,000 manuscripts, online only, with applicants required to pay an $85 entry fee. Winners will be announced next fall; judges include novelist Alice Hoffman and Robert Riger, a vice president at Barnes & Noble Inc.
