New Literary Magazine Emerged from Amazon's Breakthrough Novel Contest

Conclave - A Journal of Character

This is going to be an exciting journal to watch and read. Publishers take note! If you want to see some great fiction stay tuned for the upcoming print journal. I'm honored to be a part of it.

Here's how Editor, Valya Dudycz Lupescu described this new literary magazine:

"In January and February 2008, writers from around the world came together on the Amazon.com forums because of their shared status as entrants and finalists in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award. What began as a contest evolved into a community.

In order to create a permanent home for that writers' community, Semifinalist Valya Dudycz Lupescu and her husband Mark created www.ABNABooks.com, an online network and showcase of the published and unpublished works of the ABNA writers. ABNABooks.com is 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.

Eager to showcase some of the talent already in their ranks, as well as to promote the writing of talented authors around the world, Valya with the help of the other ABNA writers and editors, decided to create Conclave: A Journal of Character.

Conclave is annual print journal that focuses on character-driven writing in contemporary literary fiction. We hope to share with you our delight in well-told stories: stories that make you laugh, think, feel, or remember. We hope that our stories challenge and entertain, but most of all, we hope they introduce you to unforgettable characters that stay with you long after you've finished reading.

Bookmark this Web site and visit us often. If you like what you read, we hope you will subscribe, or send a gift subscription to a friend or relative.

And let us know what you think about our journal and Web site. http://www.conclavejournal.com/index.html We may post your comments online in a the upcoming “Letters to the Editor” section."

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Check out the new editors of the magazine (yours truly is a flash fiction editor).

EDITOR, Valya Dudycz Lupescu

MANAGING EDITOR, Scott Markwell

SENIOR FICTION EDITOR, Michael von Glahn

FICTION EDITORS: Enrico Antiporda, Vicki King, Jarucia Jaycox Nirula, Gae Polisner

FLASH FICTION EDITORS: Julie Ann Shapiro, Bret Wright

SENIOR CREATIVE NONFICTION EDITOR, Becky Kyle

CREATIVE NONFICTION EDITORS: Melissa Conway, Stephanie Feuer, James Noll, Meg Write

SENIOR POETRY EDITOR, Leah Davidson

POETRY EDITOR, Tom Gill

DRAMA EDITORS: Karen Joan, Mary Anne Rooney

PHOTOGRAPHY EDITORS: Megan Fergus, Jarucia Jaycox Nirula, David Stanley

COPY EDITORS:

EDITORIAL ASSISTANTS

TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE: Mark Lupescu

News from Amazon Breakthrough Novel Semifinalist

Julie Ann Shapiro's first novel, Jen-Zen and the One Shoe Diaries just had it's first major reorder from Amazon. This comes on the heels of being mentioned in USA Today. This article has been picked up by at least 20 major media outlets, if not more.

The author's second novel, Three Drop Pennies was recently a semifinalist in Amazon's Breakthrough Novel Contest. In a clever marketing development many of the semifinalists have come together to create a forum and a literary print magazine to which Julie will be serving as a flash fiction editor.


The ABNA Books Forum has united the semifinalists in the hopes of marketing their novels and attracting major attention from the publishers. For more information on the forum check out their recent press release.

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Amazon Semifinalists Launch ABNABooks.com

Community Creates Literary Site for Networking and Promotion

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."

Julie Ann Shapiro, author of Jen-Zen and the One Shoe Diaries, who’s second novel, Three Drop Pennies is an Amazon Breakthrough Novel Semifinalist has been an active participant on the Amazon forum. “This community of authors have novels that are top notch, peer-reviewed of the highest caliber and ready to be published. Book publishers should take a serious look at these manuscripts.“

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.

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

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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. 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.

Why You Should Take Digital Fiction Seriously

The book publishing world is a hard if not brutal business. I know 50 outstanding writers that don’t stand a chance of getting published by the mainstream industry and of this group each writer in turn probably knows another 50 and so exponentially we’re looking at 1000 writers with books that under regular circumstances wouldn’t stand a chance of making it. But the good news is there’s a whole world of opportunities opening up in the digital publishing arena. Before I go into that I want to tell you the typical cycle from writer to literary agent to a mainstream publishing house.

The average literary agent gets 150 queries a day from writers hoping to get their book published. The agent chooses to represent roughly 1% of these books. Agents pitch these books to the publishers who get thousands of manuscripts a year to review. An editorial committee at the publishing house then decides what books to take, but that’s not the end of the cycle. The committee still has to convince marketing that the book will earn out its royalties and advances. One naysayer at a publishing house can literally kill the book’s chances of getting published.
Novels by the established, the well known, the trendy and celebrity types with ghost writers have a greater chance of getting a book published than many talented writers.

Fortunately, digital publishing has arrived on the scene and with the potential to revolutionalize the publishing industry. This means every word, image, sound, animation, and movie can be delivered as a series of digital ones and zeros. In a word, digital publishing has changed our definition of books.

Today digital publishing is anything from an electronic (e-Book), CD-ROM, to a paper-based book or hybrid with Internet inactivity. Many of you have heard the term print on demand. This utilizes digital technology. It’s a means many independent and small presses have adopted to get their books out there and so have the likes of Harper Collins. Often times when book stores today purchase books they are printed on demand to keep costs of production down. It’s a little known cost saving secret and how the publishing industry is evolving.

What digital publishing has done for the book world is to level the playing field and give independent presses a chance to publish the kinds of books they want. More importantly it gives readers a chance to read books beyond just what the mega-conglomerate publishing houses produce.


Most of the mainstream publishers go with what’s safe and proven to make money. It’s less and less about art and more and more about dollars. This is where small digital presses have a chance to offer readers something different and to in turn give new generations of talented writers a chance.

Yes, talent, that’s what you’ll find in the digital realm in my not so humble opinion. It’s fast becoming a home for bold fiction that’s not afraid to take chances much like independent films. As more and more legions of writers are shut out by the main stream publishing conglomerates they will have no choice, but to seek out other avenues. For this reason some may liken digital publishing to self-publishing. While it’s true that anyone can publish something digitally, it doesn’t mean that by association digital book publishers are places to shun or disrespect.

This neglects the marketplace and the recognition that there are a plethora of well respected independent publishers such as Double Dragon Press, Zumaya, Mundania Press, SynergEbooks, New Concepts Publishing, Boson Books, C & M Online, Samhain Publishing, Echelon Press, Silk’s Vault and countless others who choose to offer books digitally. Not to mention the major distribution channels established for ebooks, including Fictionwise, and Mobipocket.

Even the mainstream publishers recognize the dynamic medium that digital books offer. Most of them now have ebook divisions and are seeking to capitalize on the vast Internet audience, the massive amounts of people using PDAs and other mobile devices that support ebook readers. Last fall, Harlequin announced that 40% of its new titles would be issued as ebooks.

The September 5, 2007 article in the New York Times, Envisioning the Next Chapter for Electronic Books, talked about Amazon.com’s Kindle, an electronic book reader priced at $400 to $500. It mentioned that the Kindle’s ability to wirelessly connect to an e-book store on Amazon’s site is a significant advance over older e-book devices, which must be connected to a computer to download books or articles.

Google also has plans to start charging users for digital copies of books in their database. Despite these two major Internet leaders’ plans to further their reach in the digital publishing market along with the respected publishers in the ebook marketplace, legions of consumers still don’t view digital books as real books. Many consumers in turn are hesitant to purchase ebooks, even though they are vastly cheaper than their paperback counterparts, not to mention the environmental factor of saving trees. In turn many traditional book reviewers will not consider reviewing a digital book. The authors of ebook, digital produced print on demand bookss and even epublishers at times feel like Rodney Dangerfield uttering his famous refrain, “I don’t get no respect.”

It’s time to recognize digital books as real books and applaud digital publishers for giving talented authors a chance. Let’s recognize that they are entrepreneurs living out the American Dream and carving a niche in a difficult market. After all, thousands of very good books are turned down by the mainstream publishers every year for the basic reason that they are not commercial enough…i.e. they won’t generate enough cash.

If you love books, support a digital literary writer by reading and reviewing their books. Good books deserve to be given a chance. This is your literary future, your legacy.

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Written by Julie Ann Shapiro

Freelance writer , flash fiction writer and author of Jen-Zen and the One Shoe Diaries

My Jen-Zen Journey on Facebook

Back in May 2007, I joined facebook and by July, I had started a separate blog called www.facebookenthusiast.com for promoting my services as a facebook marketing expert.

Within facebook, I have started to gain clients who are part of the creative community. This includes authors and musicians.

Last week, I began to develop marketing strategies for the release of an independent novel which is a magical romance. The author, Julie Ann Shapiro, is relatively young, yet prolific in the writing of short stories and "flash novels".

This week we began to promote her first novel called "Jen-Zen and the One Shoe Diaries" We began to promote the book both inside and outside of facebook including looking for tie-ins with shoe companies and retailers.

We also will be pursuing other media outlets for possible development of the book and other stories which could be developed into film or television projects.

This is already a fun and rewarding journey as I learn about the marketing of fiction in the new world of electronic publishing and its intersection with social networks.

Here is a link to the page within Facebook:

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=6708563066