02-19-2007, 11:17 PM
A few quotes I grabbed off the web:
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"We keep laughing about it, but this is the American Idol of book publishing," Gompertz said. "We hope that we will find a talented writer who might not in the traditional way get themselves noticed."
“It is akin to an ‘American Idol’ for thinking people,” snarked Tom Gerace, the chief executive of Gather.com.
"In case you haven't noticed, there's a book contest going on at Gather called "First Chapters." It's sort of like "American Idol" for writers..."
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Yep, here we go again. An attempt to legitimize writers as real and interesting people -- even worthy of idolization -- when by and large they're emotional and social cripples who are best kept out of sight. But you know how it is in Hollywood. If something makes money, copy it every which way you can until the cow cashes in -- something like that.
The contest rules are disturbing. Here's the most troubling phrase:
"By entering this Competition, you agree that if you are selected as the Grand Prize Winner, you will sign Simon & Schuster's standard publishing agreement within five days of receipt of the agreement."
In other words, you can't have an agent look it over and cross out the unreasonable stuff. This is insane.
Making matters worse, anyone can vote, making it a popularity contest. On American Idol, I'm sure some contestants had 100 friends who voted for them, and some might have had 1000. But this unfairness was mitigated by the millions voting across the country. In this First Chapters contest, there won't be millions voting. There may not be thousands. Already there have been major complaints about friends voting for friends. Worse still, these friends vote zeros for the opposition.
Oh well. Crap happens.
Here's the crumby contest rules:
http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?ar...4976881664
--cranefly
------------ begin quotes ---------------------
"We keep laughing about it, but this is the American Idol of book publishing," Gompertz said. "We hope that we will find a talented writer who might not in the traditional way get themselves noticed."
“It is akin to an ‘American Idol’ for thinking people,” snarked Tom Gerace, the chief executive of Gather.com.
"In case you haven't noticed, there's a book contest going on at Gather called "First Chapters." It's sort of like "American Idol" for writers..."
------------- end quotes ---------------------
Yep, here we go again. An attempt to legitimize writers as real and interesting people -- even worthy of idolization -- when by and large they're emotional and social cripples who are best kept out of sight. But you know how it is in Hollywood. If something makes money, copy it every which way you can until the cow cashes in -- something like that.
The contest rules are disturbing. Here's the most troubling phrase:
"By entering this Competition, you agree that if you are selected as the Grand Prize Winner, you will sign Simon & Schuster's standard publishing agreement within five days of receipt of the agreement."
In other words, you can't have an agent look it over and cross out the unreasonable stuff. This is insane.
Making matters worse, anyone can vote, making it a popularity contest. On American Idol, I'm sure some contestants had 100 friends who voted for them, and some might have had 1000. But this unfairness was mitigated by the millions voting across the country. In this First Chapters contest, there won't be millions voting. There may not be thousands. Already there have been major complaints about friends voting for friends. Worse still, these friends vote zeros for the opposition.
Oh well. Crap happens.
Here's the crumby contest rules:
http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?ar...4976881664
--cranefly
I'm nobody's pony.
