Last night’s Marketplace had a short segment on the outcome of Amazon.com‘s “Breakthrough Novel Award” contest, which was won by Bill Loehfelm (left)—who’s already being dubbed “the next Dennis Lehane” by Publishers Weekly. Loehfelm will get $25,000 when Putnam publishes his book at the end of July.
In the Marketplace segment, Michael Cader points out that “this contest was launched as a thinly veiled way of supporting Amazon’s print-on-demand subsidiary,” a more explicit—and more effective—characterization of what I had described to reporter Lisa Napoli (in an interview left on the cutting room floor) as “a $25,000 exercise in public relations.” All those people who didn’t win will probably be hearing a lot about BookSurge… if they haven’t already been getting the pitches. Too bad the outcry over Amazon’s strongarm tactics probably negates most of the positive buzz the company tried to generate yesterday.
