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Lily Cole joins Amazon's Kindle Stoyteller Award judging panel
Lily Cole will be a judge for Amazon’s Kindle Storyteller Award.
The model, actress and literary campaigner will join bestselling Kindle Direct Publishing author Rachel Abbott and the Alliance for Independent Authors’ founder Orna Ross on the judging panel.
The winner of the new prize will scoop a £20,000 cash prize at a central London ceremony in July, a marketing campaign on Amazon.co.uk as well as the opportunity to have the book translated. Authors have until the 19th May to submit their stories and then the shortlist “will be compiled based on a number of factors that measure customer interest” before the judges help select a winner.
Cole said: “I am delighted to be on the judging panel for Kindle Storyteller Award. The more we recognise and support excellent authors, the more likely we are to get people reading. I love good writing, from fiction to autobiographies, so I can’t wait to see what makes it through to the shortlist.”
Fellow judge Abbott has sold more than 2.7m copies of her books since publishing her debut on KDP in 2011, according to Amazon, and urges prospective winners to “be brave”. She said: “When I first started writing five years ago, I could never have imagined that I would have got to where I am today. I hope that all of those people who think they may have a book in them but for whatever reason haven’t yet written it see this as a chance to give it a go. It may seem like a daunting task, but the results can be incredible. My one bit of advice is ‘be brave and get writing’. I look forward to reading some brilliant new books from a range of different authors.”
Irish writer Ross is a former literary agent and founder of the Alliance for Independent Authors - a professional association for authors who independently publish their work.
Two Kindle executives will also help select the winner: UK Kindle content Director Amy Worth and UK head of Kindle singles Andrew Rosenheim.
Rosenheim said: “I am delighted to be chairing the panel of judges for the Kindle Storyteller Award and look forward to reading the shortlist. With so many brilliant writers out there I hope this gives readers an opportunity to discover brilliant talent, both old and new.”
Amazon launched the award last month. The prize is open to submissions for previously unpublished English Language books from all authors and genres with a minimum of 5,000 words with no upper word limit. More information can be found here.
