The changes to the contest aren’t surprising. This year, with the launch of Amazon Publishing’s New York imprint and the Department of Justice’s antitrust case against five of the big-six publishers (which publishers believe will benefit Amazon by reducing competition for ebooks), it would seemed strange if Amazon continued to work with a traditional publisher.

The contest accepts submissions in five categories: General fiction, mystery/thriller, romance, science fiction/fantasy/horror, and young adult fiction. (These areas coincide with the categories that Amazon publishes in.) In addition to the grand prize winner selected by Amazon customers, four finalists will also be selected and will each get a $15,000 advance and a contract with Amazon Publishing.

Another change: In past years, submissions were judged by traditional publishing figures — literary agents, editors and authors. This year, submissions will be judged by Amazon reviewers, Publishers Weekly reviewers (who also judged submissions in past years) and Amazon Publishing editors.

The most well-known Breakthrough Novel Award participant is probably Colleen Hoover, whose self-published Slammed was a finalist in 2012. The book and its sequel went on to hit the New York Times ebook bestseller list, and were picked up by Simon & Schuster’s Atria imprint in August.

Via Sarah Weinman

Photo courtesy of Flickr / William Christiansen

With the launch of Archway, Simon & Schuster hopes to get a piece of the rapidly growing self-publishing market. According to Bowker, over 235,000 books are self-published annually — up 287 percent since 2006. (The actual figure is likely higher since Bowker only counts titles with ISBN identification codes. Titles published without them — like ebooks offered exclusively through Kindle — are not included.)

Free self-publishing services, like Smashwords and Amazon’s KDP, focus on ebooks, while Author Solutions emphasizes print and retail distribution and has higher prices and lower ebook royalties. Archway’s “fiction” publishing package, for example, ranges in price from $1,999 to $14,999. That includes ebook distribution, but Archway authors can’t choose an ebook-only publishing option for now, though the company may add one later. Archway will pay an ebook royalty of 50 percent of net sales, so if an ebook is distributed to Kindle, for example, an Archway author would receive 50 percent of the sale minus Amazon’s 30 percent fee.

Archway is offering services like a “concierge” — “a dedicated publishing guide who will coordinate each step of the book production process” — and access to a speakers bureau. Archway titles will be included in the booksellers’ catalog Edelweiss. And Archway authors “will have the opportunity to create high-quality videos and book trailers for distribution” to the online video networks that Simon & Schuster works with, like Roku and Blinkx. Simon & Schuster is not hiring any staff; services like the “concierge” will be provided by Author Solutions.

Simon & Schuster will monitor the sales of Archway titles and may sign some authors for traditional publishing deals. In recent months, the publisher signed self-published romance authors Jamie McGuire and Colleen Hoover. “We’re excited that we’ll be able to help more authors find their own path to publication and at the same time create a more direct connection to those self-published authors ready to make the leap to traditional publishing,” Simon & Schuster CEO Carolyn Reidy said in a statement.

Penguin acquired Author Solutions for $116 million in July, but the company continues to operate independently and “Penguin is not involved in any of our partnership businesses,” ASI CEO Kevin Weiss told me. ASI already operates white-label self-publishing services for Harlequin and HarperCollins’ Thomas Nelson, for example. “We have an agreement with [Penguin] that all of our partnership businesses are confidential,” Weiss said. “Prior to [a book] being in distribution,” Penguin can’t see it and it is “sealed off behind our firewall…I informed Penguin that we are launching this deal, but I did not get their permission.”

The Chaperone by Laura Moriarty (Penguin/Riverhead)

What it’s about: Silent movie star Louise Brooks, at age 15, is accompanied by 36-year-old Cora Carlisle from Wichita to New York. The trip changes both of them. This week the book is #12 on the New York Times  ebook bestseller list and #21 on the USA Today list, with digital copies outselling print.

How the book hit the NYT list: The Chaperone, published on June 5, hit the NYT hardcover extended list earlier this summer and was chosen as USA Today‘s #1 hot fiction pick. But the ebook is seeing renewed success now because it was chosen as the Kindle Daily Deal on July 8 and was sold for $2.99. It’s now back to its digital list price, $12.99.

The Chaperone on … Amazon Kindle | Apple | Barnes & Noble Nook | Google  | Kobo | Sony

And don’t miss…

• Scholastic’s fourth-quarter earnings rose, due in large part to the success of Suzanne Collins’ dystopian trilogy The Hunger Games. Scholastic announced that the trilogy has sold over 50 million print and digital copies in the U.S.; the bestselling book of the three is still The Hunger Games, with over 23 million copies sold.
• Last week I featured Colleen Hoover’s self-published YA romance Slammed. It’s still on the NYT ebook bestseller list at #13 (and the USA Today list at #22), and now its sequel, Point of Retreat, is on the NYT ebook list too, at #19.
  

New York Times bestseller list, week of 7/29/12

Here are the titles in the top-35 that appear on the e-book bestseller list, but not on the print bestseller list (click the link to expand the chart).

USA Today bestseller list, week of 7/21/12

USA Today includes all formats and genres in one list and notes which format of a book sold best. Here are the titles in the top-35 where e-books outsold print (click the link to expand the chart).

Slammed by Colleen Hoover

Hoover’s first book, Slammed, is self-published and hits the NYT ebook fiction bestseller list this week at #13. The young adult romance tells the story of an 18-year-old girl, Layken, whose family has to move across the country after her father’s death. When Layken meets her new neighbor, Will, romance and challenges ensue.

Hoover tells me, “I hadn’t written anything in the past ten years until December [2011], when I got the idea for Slammed.” The book took a month to write and she uploaded it to Amazon on January 1, 2012 “to get it out there for friends and family. I never intended to make money off of it or for it to even turn into anything.”

How the book hit the NYT list: Hoover says, “Every single day of this whole experience has been a huge shocker.” At first, she spread the word about the book on message boards and Facebook. In March, popular romance book blogger Maryse reviewed Slammed (here’s her review) and the book took off.

What’s next: Hoover has released a Slammed sequel, Point of Retreat, on February 24. She’s working on a standalone novel, Fall Together, and a version of Slammed written from Will’s point of view.

Slammed is $2.99 on … Amazon Kindle | Barnes & Noble Nook | Smashwords

And don’t miss…

• The 50 Shades of Grey trilogy, which started out as self-published Twilight fan fiction and was bought by Random House’s Vintage in a seven-figure deal in March, is set to hit 20 million copies sold in the United States this week, with sales roughly split between print and digital formats. The Wall Street Journal reports that 31 million copies of the trilogy have been sold in English-language markets around the world.
• Note Carole Radziwill’s What Remains (Simon & Schuster/Scribner) at #35 on the NYT ebook nonfiction bestseller list. The book, Radziwill’s memoir, was first published in 2005. It’s hit the ebook list this week because Radziwill appears on the current season of Bravo reality show “Real Housewives of New York.” Brian Belfiglio, director of publicity at Scribner, says the ebook’s fast sales “simply reflect the format’s immediate accessibility, even as we went back to press to satisfy increased demand for the paperback edition at retail.”

New York Times bestseller list, week of 7/22/12

Here are the titles in the top-35 that appear on the e-book bestseller list, but not on the print bestseller list (click the link to expand the chart).

USA Today bestseller list, week of 7/12/12

USA Today includes all formats and genres in one list and notes which format of a book sold best. Here are the titles in the top-35 where e-books outsold print (click the link to expand the chart).