Amazon Semifinalists Launch ABNABooks.com

Community Creates Literary Site for Networking and Promotion

CHICAGO, Illinois – March 10, 2008 – ABNABooks.com, an online showcase, network and marketplace for writers, was launched on March 1, 2008. ABNA Books is a place for writers to present their work, keep track of fellow writers’ news and publications, and get the attention of publishers and agents.

What began as a group of entrants and semifinalists in the “Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award” contest, evolved into the Association of Breakthrough Novel Authors on ABNABooks.com. Through the Amazon discussion forum, participating writers grew into a community, working together to improve their writing and promote their books.

Brainchild of semifinalist Valya Dudycz Lupescu, ABNABooks.com establishes a more permanent home for ABNA writers and their works.

“Several writers and reviewers mentioned that they wanted a way to stay in touch and to find out about the publications of other entrants,” said Lupescu. “ABNABooks.com provides us with the place to do that. The general public can also subscribe for a free monthly update about news and publications.”

Selected as a semifinalist in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award, Lupescu's debut novel, The Silence of Trees, gained more than 200 positive reviews from customers and reviewers. Lupescu and her husband, Mark, decided to create ABNA Books to maintain the community started during the contest, while at the same time providing the public with a place to track the manuscripts and publications of this talented group of writers.

"Since the manuscripts in ABNABooks.com have been pre-screened in Amazon's Breakthrough Novel Award competition and most have received positive reviews from Publishers Weekly, I can see it as a legitimate source of good literature,” said Enrico Antiporda, author of the Top 100 Semifinalist entry, A Light in the Cane Fields. “I foresee literary agencies and commercial publishers mining the website to add to their catalogue."

With short synopses, lengthy excerpts, and prior publications, ABNA Books provides agents and editors a snapshot of writers’ projects and potential. The site also provides a place for comments and reviews, so that an author’s following and marketability may be glimpsed.

Patricia O’Sullivan has been an active participant on the Amazon forum since its creation. Her novel, The Hope of Israel, was also selected as one of the Top 100 Finalists. “What arose from this forum of competitors were friendships and writers’ support networks that sustained entrants during five long months of a public review period of their manuscript excerpts,” said O’Sullivan. “One might have thought the culling of entrants would have destroyed the ABNA community of writers. The opposite happened. What began as a contest became a community.”

For more information about ABNA Books please visit www.ABNABooks.com

ABNABooks.com
7144 N. Harlem Ave. #325
Chicago, IL 60631
USA
Valya Dudycz Lupescu

About ABNA Books.com:
ABNA began as a group of entrants and semifinalists of the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award. Through the forum, they grew into a community of writers working together to improve their writing and promote their books. ABNABooks.com is the next step in their evolution, a place to maintain that solidarity while promoting their work and perfecting their craft. ABNA Books is an online showcase, network, and marketplace for writers, created by Valya Dudycz Lupescu and her husband, Mark Lupescu. It’s a place for writers to present their work, get the attention of publishers and agents, and help each other in the process of publishing and promotion.

This release was published on openPR.