The second Kindle Direct Publishing Pen to Publish self-publishing contest in India has announced the winners of the six categories in this year’s competition.
Pen to Publish received over 4,000 entries in long-form and short-form books in English, Hindi, and Tamil. The Hindi and Tamil categories were both added this year as the first contest was only for English-language books.
Five finalists were selected for the shortlist in each category and the winners were all women writers who received ₹5 Lakh each (500,000 Indian rupees, equivalent to around $7,200 or £5,500) in the long-form sections and Rs50,000 (around $720 or £550) for short-form categories.
For the contest, long-form content was defined as any ebook with more than 10,000 words. Short-form content was defined as any ebook between 2,000 and 10,000 words.
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Aparna Das Sadhukan won in the long-form category in English for her book of short stories, Escape Routes, while the short-form winner in English was Being A Mother: It’s a Different Hormone Altogether, a collection of prose poems by Deepika Priya.
The Hindi long-form award went to Nandini Kumar for Neeli, and Anurakti Dev Singla won the short-form prize with Aatman.
The long-form award for a work in Tamil was won by Senthilbalan Manickam for a detective novel Parangi Mali Nilaiyam, and Vignesh C Selvaraj’s Article on Isai’s Poetry won the Tamil short-form award.
Sanjeev Jha, Head-Content Acquisition & Demand, Kindle Content, India says, ‘We launched the KDP Pen to Publish Contest two years ago 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 contest judges included best-selling author Ashwin Sanghi who says, ‘Self-publishing provides aspiring authors with immense opportunities to get their stories to see the light of the day. The concept of this contest not only encourages first-time writers but also fuels an environment for creating and sharing meaningful content.’
Romance titles pick up the top prizes in KDP Pen to Publish self-publishing contest