The Kindle Storyteller UK 2018 contest is running for the second year in the UK with a grand cash prize of £20,000 plus a contract with Amazon Publishing but entries will have to be published as ebooks and print books.
The entry period for Kindle Storyteller UK Award 2018 opens on May 1 and runs until August 31, 2018.
Last year there were thousands of entries in the contest but I think this year could see far fewer valid entries as the terms and conditions state:
- Entrants must make the Book available for sale in both digital and print versions through KDP or Createspace. Entries that are submitted in one format only will not meet these conditions of entry.
It’s relatively simple and inexpensive to publish an ebook but a print book is another matter and many independent authors are reluctant to publish print books as they often require considerably more time and money.
Books should be previously unpublished work and have to be published with Kindle Direct Publishing and enrolled in KDP Select, so the ebook will need to be exclusive to Kindle. When publishing the book, STORYTELLERUK2018 must be entered in the keyword metadata field in order for Amazon to identify your entry
The shortlist for the award will be decided on ‘commercial viability with regard to the book’s sales, borrows and customer feedback’. A minimum of five finalists will be selected and all the finalists will get a Kindle Oasis ebook reader. A panel of judges will then pick the overall winner.
The winner will be announced in October 2018, with the author getting £20,000 cash, a marketing campaign to support the book on Amazon.co.uk and a deal with Amazon Publishing. There will also be a further prize for another book of £5,000 in a new Judges’ Award.
There were six finalists on last year’s shortlist and they covered a range of genres, including a non-fiction book, a crime thriller, two science fiction/fantasy books, historical fiction and a lesbian romance.
The 2017 shortlist was:
Lily Cole, a judge for the Kindle StorytellerUK Award, with 2017 winner David Leadbeater
- Long Standing Ambition: the first solo round Britain windsurf by Jono Dunnett — Non-fiction
- The Relic Hunters by David Leadbeater — Crime, Thrillers & Mystery
- Wyvern Awakening by Joanna Mazurkiewicz — Young Adult – Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Henry: Book Three of the Tudor Trilogy by Tony Riches — Historical Fiction
- Tombyards & Butterflies by Orlando A Sanchez — Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Lost In You by Jade Winters — Lesbian Romance
The overall winner of the £20,000 prize was David Leadbeater for his thriller The Relic Hunters. He is a very prolific and experienced writer with over 20 novels published and more than 750,000 books sold through Kindle.
Interestingly, considering the ‘customer feedback’ aspect of the initial judging, The Relic Hunters has a relatively modest (for a best-seller) number of reader reviews on Amazon.co.uk, with 141 reviews at an average of 3.8 stars out of 5.
You can get more details about the contest at Kindle Storyteller UK 2018 on Amazon.
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