Devoted to publishing, publishers and to those who craft the written word

Touchstone and Simon & Schuster and Gather.com have initiated the world's first novel-publishing contest, helping writers ride the American Idol wave.

It's pretty simple. You can submit the first chapter of your novel and win a publishing deal. The whole contest is right up our alley: conducted from inside a social networking site, harnessing online community voting techniques, and democratizing the whole publishing process. 

You should check out the contest, this Guardian article (bless you, Ed Champion), and finally, the sixty Gather.com community comments archived here. Some astute readers discuss the problems and innovations that can arise from these kinds of contests.

I appreciated this note from a member named Layla. Go and check it out: 

"I'm glad you are on the judging panel but I wish there could be some way to make the voting fair. Unless someone has a huge amount of members in their network, they simply won't get enough votes. I'm already bracing for a tsunami of spam in my mailbox from people begging me to read their chapters."