First Chapters

For those of you who'd rather curl up with a good book after work than watch Simon Cowell and Ryan Seacrest call each other homos while Paula cries, and a bunch of questionably talented twenty-somethings with good hair get "pitchy" with the mic, then maybe First Chapters is more your kind of competition.

Gather.com First Chapters Writing Competition is "a first-time author's gateway to publication. One Novelist will win a publishing contract with Touchstone/Simone & Schuster, a $5,000 cash prize and promotion by Borders!" Anyone can read and vote on the best first chapters of an unpublished book and the votes continue on through successive chapters until a winner is chosen.

So put that remote down already and get to reading. The hair might not be as great, but there probably won't be as many pitch problems, either.