I have good news and bad news. The good news is that my second proof copy of Terra Nova: The Search will be here on Monday. For the last month or so Stacie and I have both read it, and I’ve made a number of fixes that should only improve the book. Once it’s here I can approve it for sale if everything looks good.

Now the bad news. You’ll have to wait about another month to read it, because I’ve entered my book into the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest. Basically it’s a contest for unpublished authors to try and win a publishing contract. If you’ve been keeping up with my book posts you’ll know I don’t care much about pursuing a real publishing deal (which is why I’m self-publishing), but this contest was too easy to pass up. I’ve already put in two years of work, so why not enter and see if I get lucky?

They’re accepting submissions through tomorrow (or up to the first 10,000). After that they read the pitch I wrote, and they’ll narrow the field down. Eventually around March 16th they’ll announce the 500 quarterfinalists and post an excerpt from their book (the first 3k-5k words). The reason you’ll have to wait until around that date is because you can’t submit a book that has been previously published, and if I approve my book for sale in the next week, then technically it will be self-published, and I will no longer be eligible for the contest. There’s a good chance I won’t even make it to the 500, and if I don’t, then I’ll hit the “publish” button and move on. But I figure it’s worth waiting another month to take part in this contest, and see what happens!

Stacie also entered Luke in a contest. It’s put on by Regis and Kelly, and while I typically would be against pimping out the baby in photo contests, there is a potential grand-prize of $125,000 in college scholarships, so I figure it’s worth it. Here’s the photo we submitted.

luke-charlton-beautiful-baby(Photo credits to my brother, geekyweekly)

Wish us luck!