Press Release: Prizes and Awards
YouWriteOn.com Book Of The Year Awards 2010. Winner Achieves Major Book Deal
Posted at 10:09AM Friday 30 Jul 2010
Arts Council funded new writer's site YouWriteOn.com has announced its 2010 Book of the Year Awards, with its winner following in the footsteps of site members who have achieved mainstream publishing success. YouWriteOn's Adult Fiction winner, The Apothecary's Daughter by Charlotte Betts, was discovered by the literary agency who represents bestselling book series The Princess Diaries by the agency viewing the story's opening chapters on the YouWriteOn story charts earlier this year, and the novel has now secured a 2 book deal with publisher Little Brown - publisher of bestselling authors such as as Iain Banks, Stephanie Meyer and Patricia Cornwell. The Apothecary's Daughter will be published in 2011.YouWriteOn Children's Fiction 2010 Overall Winner The Scarlet Heart by Justine Windsor, still being developed by the author, is currently being considered by leading publisher Orion. In 2009 Orion discovered and published The Legacy by Katherine Webb after viewing the novel's highly rated opening chapters on YouWriteOn.com which had received great support from members. The Legacy was YouWriteOn's 2009 Book Award winner and has become a top seller in bookstores this summer after being selected as one of the eight TV Book Club Summer Reads, including reaching number one on Amazon UK's contemporary fiction chart in July 2010. YouWriteOn.com's premise is a simple one, members rate each others' opening chapters, which are randomly assigned by their system, and each month the highest rated writers receive feedback from editors for leading publishers Orion and Random House. The highest rated stories each year then go on to be considered for the book awards the following year. Previous YouWriteOn Book Award Winners and Finalists who have developed on site have achieved book deals with a range of the world's leading publishers each year since YouWriteOn's awards began in 2007. These include: - a six figure book deal for Caligula by Douglas Jackson with publisher Random House who provide critiques for the highest rated stories on youwriteon each month; - The Afrika Reich by Guy Saville published by Stephen King's publisher - Bufflehead Sisters by Patricia J. DeLois, initially published by YouWriteOn, achieved thousands of sales resulting in a 2 book deal with Penguin. - This year, previous YouWriteOn Children's Book of the Year winner The Third Pig Detective Agency by Bob Burke, which the author developed on YouWriteOn, received the Ellis Dillion Award at the Bisto Book Awards, which has previously recognised authors such as Artemis Fowl author Eoin Colfer. The success of this year's winner Charlotte Bett's with Little Brown means the site's book award winners have achieved book deals with many of the world's leading publishers - including Penguin, Random House, Orion, Harper Collins, Hodder & Stoughton and Little Brown - for each year of the YouWriteOn Book Awards since 2007. This year's winner Charlotte Betts commented, "My agent, Annette Green, found The Apothecary's Daughter on the YouWriteOn website and The Apothecary's Daughter will be published next Summer 2011. This is the realisation of a dream for me and I will always be grateful to YouWriteOn and its members, not only for the valuable feedback but for the opportunity to allow my work to be displayed and then discovered. Thank you to everyone who helped me to improve my writing." All the winners and runners-up can be viewed on the YouWriteOn.com site.
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