174 years after Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol novella was first enjoyed by readers, Amazon invites new and established writers to create a modern-day young children’s story inspired by the worldwide classic
The winning author will receive a prize package including having his or her book professionally illustrated by award-winning illustrator Ian Beck, a £2,000 Amazon Gift Card and a top-of-the-range Fire tablet.
Following the success of 2016’s search for a new Christmas bedtime story, Amazon has today launched the 2017 search for a new children’s festive tale that is a reimagined and modern take on Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. Don’t worry, you don’t have to write as much a s Dickens, there is a 1,000-word limit on the new story.
The winning children’s book will be illustrated and published in time for this Christmas season.
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Dickens’ A Christmas Carol clocks in at 29,000 words and sold out in just five days when it was released in 1843, just in time for Christmas Eve.
Could your new short story lead to a new career and future success?
1. Try and see things from a child reader’s perspective. What is important to them or was important to yourself when you were a child?
Try to be in touch with that child self, and remember the heightened emotions, the intense fears and joys the highs and lows.
Try and remember what Christmas felt like when you were a child: the tingle of excitement, the family gathered together, the sudden closeness, the familiar rituals such as dressing the tree and so on.
2. Remember that in a story of this kind, which will be heavily illustrated, the pictures will do some of the heavy lifting.
There is no need, for instance, to waste words by saying that the sky was blue as the picture will (hopefully) do that for you.
On the other hand, it is good to think visually as it is a story with pictures and it will be good to set up scenes that make for an exciting or moving picture.
3. Concentrate on the arc of the story, the poetry of the words, the fit and sound of them working together.
Although I don’t mean poetry in the sense of rhyming – perhaps best to avoid that! See it from not only the child’s perspective but that of the future reader, especially the person who might read the story aloud.
Reading aloud what you have written is a pretty good way to find the false steps in your text.
To be in with the chance of winning, UK-based authors should submit up to a 1,000 word story in English by 7 November.
The winning story will be made available on the Kindle store around the world in the run up to Christmas.
Authors can submit their stories from today by emailing their entries to [email protected] to be judged by a team of Amazon books editors, the illustrator, Ian Beck, and last year’s competition winner Lucy Banks.
The story will be published through KDP, Amazon’s independent publishing programme, which enables authors to retain their copyrights, keep control, distribute globally, and earn royalties of up to 70%. The author will be enrolled into KDP Select and as a result, the book will be available through Kindle Unlimited.
The competition is now open for entries. For more information, writers can visit www.amazon.co.uk/christmasonkindle.