Amazon announced the winners of the second Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) Pen to Publish Contest. The annual contest celebrates theexceptionalwork of self-published authors across all genres in long-form and short-form categories. The winning authors for long-form writing received a prize of ₹5 lakh eachwhile those for short form received₹50,000 each. Additionally, all the finalists received a Kindle E-reader.To encourage authors of regional languages, this year’s edition was open to entries in Hindi and Tamil, in addition to English.
Sanjeev Jha, Head-Content Acquisition & Demand, Kindle Content, India said, “We launched the KDP Pen to Publish Contest two years back as a way to celebrate fascinating stories by talented upcoming writers and raise awareness of their work for readers to enjoy. This year, the contest has encouraged many budding authors in Hindi and Tamil languages to explore self-publishing as a new way to bring their writing to readers. The KDP team congratulates all winners and extends them wishes to continue to write great stories.”
Following are the sixwinners for this year’s contest –
Winners in long-form writing (10,000 words and above)
- Escape Routes: Short Stories (English edition) by Aparna Das Sadhukan. Genre: Literature & fiction
- Neeli (Hindi edition) by Nandini Kumar. Genre: Literature & fiction
- PARANGI MALAI IRAYIL NILAIYAM: பரங்கிமலை இரயில் நிலையம் (Detective Karthick Aldo series Book 2) (Tamil Edition) by Senthil Balan. Genre: Mystery & Thriller
Winners in short-form writing (2,000 and 10,000 words)
- Being a mother: It’s a different hormone altogether (English edition) by Deepika Priya. Genre: Health, Mind and Body
- Aatman (Hindi edition) by Anurakti. Genre: Poetry
- குத்தாட்டம் போடச்செய்யும் ‘இசை’: Article about Isai’s Poetry (Tamil edition) By Vignesh C Selvaraj . Genre: Literature & fiction
The winning titles were chosen on the basis of several criteria including creativity, originality, qualityof writing, and commercial viability. The jury panel for the contest included best-selling authors such as Ashwin Sanghi, Rashmi Bansal, Sundari Venkatraman, Divya Prakash Dubey and Era. Murugan. The top six winners were shortlisted from thousands of entries across theglobe over the span of three months.
Winner of the English long-form,Aparna Das Sadhukan said, “I am so excited to win the KDP Pen to Publish Contest in my category. I started writing this bookseveral months ago inspired by our inherent need to escape from a troubled situation in our daily lives. This contest helped me take my writing to thousands of readers digitally and in the process I discovered the ease, choice and fun of self-publishing through KDP”.
“Hindi language writing has a huge readership and I am so happy that the KDP Pen to Publish Contest has taken my poems toKindleE-readersand mobile screens of Hindi readers all over the world! It feels great to have won this contest and I hope to encourage more authors to take advantage of self-publishing on KDP,” says Anurakti, the winner of the Hindi short-form category.
Ashwin Sanghi, best-selling author of English fiction, who was also one of the judges for this year’s contest said, “Self-publishing through KDP provides aspiring authors with immense opportunities to get their stories to see the light of the day. The concept of KDP Pen to Publish Contest not only encourages first-time writers but also fuels an environment for creating and sharing meaningful content.”
The KDP Pen to Publish Contest receivedsubmissions of new English, Hindi and Tamil language books across all genres. Participants self-published their eBooks on kdp.amazon.com to enter the contest. All eBooks entries from the contest are available on the Kindle Store on any device with the free Kindle app for iPhone, iPad, Android phones and tablets, PC and Mac as well as Kindle E-readers. KDP is a fast, free and easy way for authors to publish their books to a global audience, and receive up to 70 percent royalties on sale of their eBooks. On any given day, up to 20 per cent of the Top 100 books on the India Kindle store are published by authors who have decided to keep control by publishing through KDP.