Here’s an interesting tidbit for those who are contemplating a try at Amazon’s 2009 Breakthrough Novel Award contest. A judge for Amazon’s 2008 Breakthrough  tells-all (ht Galleycat):

Now seems the right time for full disclosure: I am a member of the National Book Critics Circle. I penned several of the much contested Publishers Weekly reviews, for a $40 per manuscript honorarium. Am I a “professional” reviewer? I am a poet and a human being—and I review books, too. But for the purposes of the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award (the discussion boards insisted) I was the bloodless professional, the executioner. Over a period of six weeks, some twenty manuscripts arrived at my apartment. The deliveries thumped at the doorstep like children on Halloween, wanting treats. I dispatched them with 250-word critiques—tricks.

Double ouch:

The ten finalists were allowed to make a “plea” for themselves. Their manuscript excerpts were posted alongside photos and autobiographical statements—beauty-pageant-style effusions of their passions and dreams, stories about their pets, et cetera, worthy of a runway walk finale. The three top vote-getters were flown to New York where the winner was announced. Congratulations go to Bill Loehfelm, author of Fresh Kills—a mystery thriller I have never read and probably never will.

Oh dear.

Kathleen Bolton is co-founder of Writer Unboxed. She has written two novels under the pseudonym Cassidy Calloway: Confessions of a First Daughter, and Secrets of a First Daughter--both books in a YA series about the misadventures of the U.S. President's teen-aged daughter, published by HarperCollins.
Kathleen Bolton
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