Knoxvillian Wins Publishing Contract from Online C

Knoxvillian Terry Shaw was recently awarded first prize in Gather.com's First Chapters Writing Competition, which includes a publishing contract from Simon & Schuster and promotion from Borders, for his novel The Way Life Should Be.

Designed to encourage and promote unpublished novelists, the contest was co-sponsored by Simon & Schuster, Borders and Gather.com, which bills itself as “the leader in social media for adults.” (Or as Shaw put it, “Some people say it's like Myspace for adults.”) The contest has also been called “American Idol for Books” by various media outlets and has been promoted as such by Gather.com.

There were close to 2,700 submissions, which were whittled down to 20 through a voting process whereby 15 were chosen by Gather.com members and five by a panel of judges. A third round brought the number to 10, and finally, only five were left from which to choose, those decided exclusively by the esteemed judges: the President of the Simon & Schuster Adult Publishing Group, the Executive Vice President and Publisher of Touchstone Books, the CEO and President of Borders and the founder and CEO of Gather.com.

Shaw says it was a pretty nerve-racking experience waiting to find out the results, but also considers himself fortunate to have found out about and entered the competition. He says he wasn't a member of Gather.com until a few days before the contest deadline.

“My agent kept saying how difficult it was to get a book published, saying you had to be a celebrity or flavor of the month. I was ready to try and publish my novel and she said,  “Oh, just give me another month to look at it.” So I saw this competition, withdrew my book from my agent and submitted it online.”

He wasn't even sure he was officially entered, though, because when he attempted to submit his work, his e-mail kept crashing. “It was four hours until deadline, and I had a new e-mail account, and I wasn't sure what was happening,” Shaw recounts, laughing. “There were so many submissions, I couldn't find mine at first, so I wasn't sure it made it.”

Shaw is a fairly recent Knoxville transplant from the Northeast, where he worked in the newspaper business for 15 years, as an editor in cities such as Brunswick, Maine, and Niagara Falls, N.Y., among others. The Way Life Should Be is a suspense novel set in coastal Maine, concerning a newspaper editor investigating a friend's death. When asked if the move to the Southeast had any effect on his writing or subject matter, Shaw reflects:  “The distance helped me. A different place cleared my head.”

He also finds Knoxville “a great arts town,” surprised at all it has to offer, considering its relative size.

Even though Shaw will soon have a published novel, it seems the newspaper ink still flows through his blood after so many years at the job. As we're ending our conversation he offers this: “I was a newspaper editor for a long time. If you guys need any help or anything, let me know.”

The Way Life Should Be will be available in September at most major bookstores with prominent placement and promotion in Borders across the country.