International Book Idol

Now an online contest to decide what (and who) to publish.

Amazon is joining hands with Penguin and Hewlett Packard for the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award. The contest which kicked off on October 1, 2007 will allow contestants from 20 countries (including India) to submit unpublished manuscripts of English-language novels to Amazon till 5 November, 2007. Following this Amazon will ask a group of its top online reviewers to assess 5000 word excerpts and choose a 1000 participants who will go on to the next round. The full manuscripts of the chosen 1000 will be sent to Publishers Weekly, which will assign reviewers to each. These reviews will then be posted online, along with excerpts and thrown open to Amazon's customers for comments. Using these online comments along with the Publishers Weekly reviews, Penguin will narrow the field to a 100 "finalists." Penguin editors will then cut the number down to 10 and send the manuscripts to an expert panel. The panel's comments will be posted on Amazon and the readers can then vote on the winner.

The winner gets a publishing contract and an advance of $25000 from Penguin.

Details of the contest here. Contest rules and FAQs.

A Reality TV Show for Aspiring Writers

Now would-be writers are to get the reality TV show treatment in an attempt to find a new Dan Brown or JK Rowling.

Aspiring authors will be invited to pitch their ideas for a blockbuster novel to a panel of judges headed by Tony Cowell, big brother of The X Factor's Simon Cowell. [. . .]

Winners will receive a six-figure advance and a deal with a major publisher in Britain and America. Contestants who survive the first round will be 'mentored' by a line-up of authors expected to include Jackie Collins and Jeffrey Archer. [. . .]

Viewers will see the mechanics of writing a book - how people come up with a crazy idea and make it work against all the odds. [. . .]

With so many reality TV shows, we should have expected something like the Bestseller happening. What to expect from the Bestseller?
Look out for some amazing typing action and keep your eyes peeled for that awesome slasher episode — the massacre of a thousand words.

Are we Tiring of the Printed Word?

A Poynter Institute study finds online readers finish news stories more often than those who read in print.

Fooling Around on April Fool's Day

Spaghetti trees, a spoof moon base, a lake full of tranquilized and napping fish . . .Some of the silliest tricks pulled off by the media on April Fool's Day.

Speed Reading Salman Rushdie

NDTV's Barkha Dutt interviews Salman Rushdie and manages to find out (for the great benefit of all of us) that Padmalakshmi when she first met the author, hadn't read any of his books.

Subsequently she read them all very quickly.

And that's the only question in the interview presently posted on the NDTV website about Salman Rushdie's writing.

Meanwhile Rediff quotes Salman Rushdie from the NDTV interview on why coming back to India was still special.

For me its always, you know its like drinking at the well. Every so often you have to come to the well to drink.

Update: Barkha Dutt via an email pointed out that the Rediff quote was from the NDTV interview. I have subsequently modified the post accordingly.
In my defense the mistake wasn't an oversight, but a misinterpretation. And I apologize for that. The Rediff interview mentions NDTV much earlier in the article where Salman Rushdie is talking about how Kashmiri Muslims (and I am paraphrasing here) have been at the receiving end of both the terrorists and the Indian Armed forces. The entire article, at the end, has a PTI copyright.
I did check the Rediff article against the interview presently on display on the NDTV website. The interview, at the moment, doesn't have the excerpt on India that I quoted from the Rediff article.

Omigod!

Rediff does the predictable and inflicts a desi version of Brangelina and TomKat on its poor readers. Rediff invites us to proffer advice to "this generation's golden couple" Abhiwarya. Ladies and gentlemen, we have India's first celebrity couple portmanteau.

Expect the other MSM to follow suit.

It is one of those moments I wish I had a sledgehammer handy. Or a chainsaw.

So will Abhiwarya make it to this page?

Update: Amit Varma's fears have come true.

A Little Birdie Whispered in Schumacher's Ear. . .

. . . Drive faster Ralf, drive faster! You have eighteen cars ahead of you.

The next time Ralf Schumacher takes his new Formula One car out for a spin, a little bird on his flank will be urging him on to go faster and faster.

That's our dear old Times of India on the two-year deal that Fly Kingfisher has signed with Formula One team Panasonic Toyota Racing.

Immensely evocative imagery that. Much joy happens.