Competitions

New Market

A new market/method of publication has come to town, but I’m honestly not sure I like it. It has too much room for misuse, but let’s see what you think:

PUBSLUSH is an entirely new kind of full service, social non profit publisher: readers decide what books get published, and for every book sold, a book is donated to a child in need.
The process is simple:

Writers submit the best 10 pages and a summary of their manuscript.
Users read, share, and support (a.k.a. pre-order) their favorite submissions. They’re only charged if a book is selected for publication.
Once a book reaches 2,000 supporters, we publish it (ensuring only the best books get published). PUBSLUSH provides all the services and support of a legacy publisher.
For every book sold, a book will be donated to a child in need.

Sounds like a good deal and it is. Kinda. A child in need receives a book. A struggling author is published. What can go wrong? Well, once upon a time my husband’s cover art for my book was in a competition. Don’t get me wrong, Dear Hubby is an AWESOME graphics artist and has done many Indie book covers as well as independent illustrations by now and I do think he deserved to place in this competition. But should I have asked friends and family to go vote? I’m not sure. I did NOT ask them to vote for Mourn Their Courage’s cover, but I’m sure many people did without checking out the other incredible covers. A fact that has haunted me. You see, that sort of competition ends up being one of how many friends and family do the individual competitors have. The DH won, but I’ve always been haunted by the question of, “Did he win fairly?” There was some stiff competition and it was a landslide vote. Not what we were expecting. So yes, I have problems with this sort of thing.

What do you think? If you do use Pubslush, how will you ask folks to vote?