New Delhi, Amazon on Thursday announced the winners of the second Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) Pen to Publish Contest.
The annual contest celebrates the exceptional work of self-published authors across all genres in long-form and short-form categories.
The winning authors for long-form writing received a prize of Rs 5 lakh each while those for short form received Rs 50,000 each. Additionally, all the finalists received a Kindle E-reader.
To encourage authors of regional languages, this year’s edition was open to entries in Hindi and Tamil, in addition to English.
“We launched the KDP Pen to Publish Contest two years back 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 KDP team congratulates all winners and extends them wishes to continue to write great stories,” a statement stated.
The first entry in long-form writing (10,000 words and above) was secured by Aparna Das Sadhukan for Escape Routes: Short Stories (English edition)–Genre: Literature & fiction.
The second by Nandini Kumar for Neeli (Hindi edition)–Genre: Literature & fiction
The third by Senthil Balan for PARANGI MALAI IRAYIL NILAIYAM: Detective Karthick Aldo series Book 2 (Tamil Edition)—Genre: Mystery & Thriller.
Winners in short-form writing (2,000 and 10,000 words) were Deepika Priya for Being a mother: It’s a different hormone altogether (English edition)–Genre: Health, Mind and Body
Second entry was awarded to Anurakti for Aatman (Hindi edition)–Genre: Poetry
Third for Tamil edition to Vignesh C Selvaraj for an Article about Isai’s Poetry (Tamil edition)– Genre: Literature & fiction.
The winning titles were chosen on the basis of several criteria including creativity, originality, quality of writing, and commercial viability.
The jury panel for the contest included best-selling authors, such as Ashwin Sanghi, Rashmi Bansal, Sundari Venkatraman, Divya Prakash Dubey and Era. Murugan.
The top six winners were shortlisted from thousands of entries across the globe over the span of three months.