Amazon recently launched a writing contest aimed at winning over readers in India. The contest has a prize of one million Indian Rupees, worth around $15,000 USD.

ELIGIBILITY

1) The Contest is only open to residents of India, Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States. Only individuals who are the older of 18 years of age or the legal age of majority in their jurisdiction of residence at the time of entry are permitted to participate.

2) The Contest and these Official Rules are void in Quebec and where prohibited by law and are subject to applicable laws. Entrants may not be a national or legal permanent resident of any of the following countries: Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Sudan, South Sudan, Syria or Region of Crimea.

3) Entrants may not be members of any guild, union or other organisation that may prohibit them from participating in this Contest and that would restrict, require due payment or otherwise have the right to oppose such entrant’s participation in this Contest. The Contest is not open to employees or independent contractors, or immediate family members (spouses, domestic partners, parents, grandparents, siblings, children, and grandchildren) or those living in the same household of employees or independent contractors of Sponsor, any entity involved in any aspect of the Contest (including funding, judging or administration), and each of their respective parents, subsidiaries, affiliates, advisors, or advertising/promotion agencies.

HOW TO ENTER.

Contest entry period begins at 00:01 IST on July 25, 2017, until 23:59 IST on November 10, 2017 (the “Entry Period”). To enter, during the Entry Period you must go to the Kindle Direct Publishing (“KDP”) sign-in page and following the instructions) (you may select the language for your region in the upper right corner of the page) and follow the instructions to upload and publish to KDP an original, previously unpublished, English-language book authored solely by you (the “Book” or the “Entry”), and include the exact phrase “pentopublish2017” (no need to include the quote marks) in the “keywords” metadata field in order for us to identify your Entry. Entry into the Contest also requires that you have an Amazon account and a completed KDP account and you have accepted the KDP Terms of Service and theTerms and Conditions for KDP Select Program.

All Entries must be received by 23:59 IST on November 10, 2017. Limit one Entry per person and KDP account. In the event any entrant submits more than one Entry, the first Entry received by Sponsor will be deemed that entrant’s Entry. Entrants assume all risk of lost, late, misdirected, incomplete, or unintelligible Entries.

Sponsor’s (or its contractor’s) servers and clock shall be deemed the official clock for all phases of the Contest, and entrant’s proof of a submission does not constitute proof of receipt by Sponsor. Sponsor is not responsible for (i) lost, misdirected, late, incomplete, or unintelligible Entries or for inaccurate entry information, whether caused by entrant or by any of the equipment or programming associated with or utilized in the Contest, or by any technical or human error that may occur in the processing of Entries; or (ii) any printing, production, human or typographical errors in any materials associated with the Contest.

SPONSOR RESERVES THE RIGHT IN ITS SOLE AND UNFETTERED DISCRETION TO DISQUALIFY AT ANY TIME ANY ENTRY CONTAINING OBSCENE, OFFENSIVE, PORNOGRAPHIC OR SEXUALLY EXPLICIT MATERIAL, OR LIBELOUS, DISPARAGING, INFRINGING OR OTHER INAPPROPRIATE CONTENT OR SUBJECT MATTER (AS DETERMINED BY SPONSOR IN ITS SOLE DISCRETION).

CONDITIONS OF ENTRY.

Each entrant must follow and meet the following requirements when submitting an Entry:

1) By entering, entrants agree to be bound by these Official Rules.

2) Entrant must be the legitimate and sole author of the Book.

3) Entrant must complete a KDP account (by going to the KDP sign-in page and following the instructions) and accept the KDP Terms of Service and the Terms and Conditions for KDP Select Program.

4) The Book’s content must comply with the content policy and guidelines found in the Amazon.com Content Guidelines located at www.amazon.com/contentguidelines and in the KDP Content Guidelines and meet other reasonable community standards.

5) The Book must not currently or previously have been the subject of a publishing agreement or option with any publisher or have been previously published in any format (including KDP) or in any other language.

6) Entrant must enrol the Book in KDP Select and make it available for sale as an eBook exclusively through Amazon from the date of submission of the Entry until the expiration of the Entry Period, and if selected as a Finalist, until the Grand Prize winner is announced.

7) Entrant must be able and willing to (i) enter into an exclusive publishing agreement with Sponsor or any of its affiliates’ (collectively “Amazon”) on standard terms for publication of the Book in English language; and (ii) negotiate in good faith with Amazon to enter into an exclusive, worldwide publishing agreement for your Book in all other languages, and must not be under any existing obligation that would inhibit or prevent the Entrant from entering such publishing agreements.

8) Each entrant, by accepting these Official Rules and by entering this Contest, represents and warrants that (i) he/she is the legitimate author of the Book entered; (ii )he/she owns all right, title and interest in and to the content of the Book, including all patent, copyright, trademark, service mark, mask work, moral right, trade secret or other intellectual property or proprietary right; and (iii) he/she has received the written consent of any person (or parent or legal guardian if such person is a minor) who appears or is identifiable in any Entry. If an entrant appears or is identifiable in his/her Entry, such entrant consents, by virtue of submitting his/her Entry to the Contest, to Sponsor’s use of the entrant’s name, likeness, photograph or image, whether in writing, audio, and/or video, for any purpose, in any media, without compensation or additional consideration to entrant. Failure to obtain or provide such consent will disqualify the Entry. Sponsor may at any time during the Contest request proof of such consent and disqualify any Entry for which such consent cannot be provided.

9) Sponsor may disqualify any entrant whose Entry Sponsor determines, in its sole discretion, at any time does not comply with any requirement described in these Official Rules or the foregoing representations and warranties. Entrants agree to indemnify and hold harmless Sponsor, the Prize Providers, any person or any entity involved in any aspect of the Contest (including funding, judging or administration), and each of their respective parents, subsidiaries, affiliates, advisors, contractors, and advertising/promotion agencies (collectively, the “Released Parties”), for any action or claim brought by a person whose consent entrant did not obtain. By entering this Contest, entrants are authorising the transfer of personal data for the purposes of administering the Contest, conducting publicity about the Contest and such additional purposes consistent with our goals or the Contest goals. By entering the Contest, entrants consent to our collection, use and disclosure of their personal information for these purposes and also to potentially contact entrants for marketing purposes. All information submitted in connection with this Contest will be treated in accordance with these terms and conditions of Sponsor’s privacy notice.

Sponsor is collecting personal information primarily to process the Entries and to contact you if necessary, but also to potentially contact you for marketing purposes. If you do not wish to be contacted for marketing purposes, you will be provided with a method to opt-out of future communications. You may update or change your account preferences in your Amazon account. Sponsor will share your information with third parties that have a need to know, such as the judging panel, and by entering, you agree to the sharing of your information with the judging panel and third parties Sponsor retains to assist in administering the Contest. If you do not agree to these Official Rules or to Sponsor’s privacy notice located at www.amazon.in/privacy, please do not submit an Entry.

10) By entering the Contest, entrants consent to the use of their names, biographical information, Entries, images and/or likenesses in any manner and in any medium for any purpose in connection with the Contest, including worldwide, without additional compensation, except where prohibited by law.

JUDGING.

First Round. From July 25, 2017 through December 9, 2017, each Book will be rated based on the commercial viability of the Book (including, without limitation, with regards to the Book’s sales, borrows and customer feedback (on the website www.amazon.in only), as determined by Sponsor in its sole discretion, and up to 5 finalists (each a “Finalist”) will be selected. In the event of a tie, the tie will be broken by the tied Entries being rated based on originality of Book content, as determined by Sponsor in its sole discretion. Sponsor will not contact you if you are not selected as a Finalist. Each Finalist will be notified by phone or e-mail on or about December 10, 2017.

Each Finalist will have two (2) days from the date of Sponsor’s notice to respond to Sponsor and confirm acceptance of the Finalist Prize (as defined below). If a Finalist (or any substitute Finalist) is disqualified, ineligible, cannot be reached, or fails to claim the Finalist Prize within two (2) days of Sponsor’s notice, that winner (or substitute winner) will forfeit the Finalist Prize and it will be awarded to the entrant who submitted the next highest rated Entry, as determined by Sponsor in its sole discretion. If having attempted to contact a Finalist and the substitute winner for such Finalist, Sponsor is unable to award a Finalist Prize, Sponsor reserves the right to consider such Finalist Prize unclaimed.

Final Round. From December 11, 2017, through January 9, 2017, each Finalist’s Book will be rated by a panel of qualified judges selected by Sponsor on a number of criteria, including but not limited to (i) originality of Book content; (ii) creativity of Book content; and (iii) quality of writing (collectively, the “Judging Criteria”). One Grand Prize winner will be selected based on the Judging Criteria and will be notified by phone or e-mail on or about January 10, 2017. In the event of a tie, the tie will be broken by the tied Books being rated based solely on originality of Book content, as determined by Sponsor in its sole discretion.

The Grand Prize winner will have two (2) days from the date of Sponsor’s notice to respond to Sponsor and confirm acceptance of the Grand Prize (as defined below). If the Grand Prize winner (or any substitute winner) is disqualified, ineligible, cannot be reached, or fails to claim the Grand Prize within two (2) days of Sponsor’s notice, that Grand Prize winner (or substitute winner) will forfeit the Grand Prize and it will be awarded to the entrant who submitted the next highest rated Book. If having attempted to contact the Grand Prize winner and the substitute Grand Prize winner, Sponsor is unable to award the Grand Prize, Sponsor reserves the right to consider the Grand Prize unclaimed.

All decisions of Sponsor are final and binding, and no correspondence will be entered into. Non-winners will not be notified. The name of the Finalists and Grand Prize winner and their country of residence will be provided on receipt of a written request sent to [[email protected]] within 30 days of the award of the applicable prize.

PRIZES.

1) Each Finalist will receive a Kindle Oasis e-reader with Charging Cover, 6'' High-Resolution Display (300 ppi) with Built-in Light, Free 3G + Wi-Fi or an equivalent cash award as determined by Amazon (each a “Finalist Prize”). 
2) One Grand Prize winner will receive the following Grand Prize package (collectively, the “Grand Prize”): 
i) INR 10,00,000 award to be paid by way of an account payee cheque or electronically wired to the Grand Prize winner’s account; 
ii) a book launch merchandising package on Amazon.in for the launch of the winner’s Book, as determined by Sponsor in its sole discretion; 
iii) a publishing agreement with Westland Publications Limited granting Amazon the exclusive worldwide publication rights in all formats for English and a translated edition of the Grand Prize winner’s Book in at least one language other than English (and at Amazon’s option, in all other languages), as determined by Amazon in its sole discretion (the “Publishing Agreement”); and 
iv) the opportunity to participate in a mentoring session with a KDP author selected by Amazon in its sole discretion.

No requests for transfer, assignment, cash redemption or substitution of prizes shall be entertained. Sponsor reserves the right to substitute any prize (or portion thereof) for an item of comparable or greater value, in its sole discretion. All prizes will be awarded “AS IS” and WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, express or implied (including, without limitation, any implied warranty of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose). Limit one prize per person.

TAXES.

Each Finalist and Grand Prize winner will be responsible for paying all costs and expenses related to the applicable prize(s) that are not specifically mentioned, including, but not limited to, taxes, levies or any similar amounts, and any other expenses that might reasonably be incurred by the winner in receiving or using the prize. Each winner may be required to submit to Sponsor such tax filing information required including its Permanent Account Number by Sponsor in order to claim the prize. All prizes awarded will be inclusive of any taxes Sponsor is required by law to withhold as well as applicable sales, use, gross receipts, goods and service, or similar transaction-based taxes, as determined by Sponsor in its sole discretion at the time such prizes are awarded. Payment made to the winner will be subject to withholding of appropriate taxes, levies or any similar amounts. All other taxes, costs and expenses associated with acceptance and use of any prize not specified in these Official Rules as being provided are the sole responsibility of the winners. IF TAXES, LEVIES OR ANY SIMILAR AMOUNTS ARE APPLICABLE TO THE PRIZES, AND NO SUCH TAXES, LEVIES OR SIMILAR AMOUNTS ARE WITHHELD, IT IS THE RESPONSIBILITY OF THE WINNER TO PAY TO THE APPROPRIATE AUTHORITIES. PAYMENTS TO COMPETITION WINNERS ARE SUBJECT TO THE EXPRESS REQUIREMENT THAT THE WINNER SUBMIT TO SPONSOR ALL DOCUMENTATION REQUESTED BY SPONSOR TO PERMIT COMPLIANCE WITH ALL APPLICABLE STATE, FEDERAL, LOCAL AND FOREIGN (INCLUDING PROVINCIAL) TAX REPORTING AND WITHHOLDING REQUIREMENTS. Competition winners are responsible for ensuring that the tax documentation submitted to Sponsor complies with all applicable tax laws and requirements. If a winner fails to provide the documentation or submits incomplete documentation, the prize may be forfeited and Sponsor may, in its sole discretion, select an alternate winner.

GRANT OF RIGHTS.

By submitting your Book in this Contest, if you are selected as a Finalist you grant to Amazon:

1) the exclusive first worldwide publication rights to your Book in all formats and in at least one language other than English as determined by Amazon in its sole discretion; and 
2) the exclusive first worldwide publication rights in all formats of your Book, in all other languages, for a period of 60 days after you receive the notification from Sponsor that you are a Finalist. During that 60-day period, you agree to negotiate in good faith the terms and conditions of a publishing agreement with Amazon. If you and Amazon have not reached an agreement after 60 days, you will not have any further obligation to Sponsor or its affiliates under this clause (b).If you are not selected as a Finalist, Amazon's exclusive first publication rights to your Book terminate when you are eliminated from the Contest.

Entries, along with the entrant’s name may be posted on any Web site owned and/or operated by Sponsor or any of its affiliates (“Sponsor Site”), Sponsor’s pages on social media websites, such as Facebook, Twitter or Instagram, and any other Web site or other online point of presence on any platform, through which any products or services available on or through the Sponsor Site are described, syndicated, offered, merchandised or advertised, in Sponsor’s sole discretion. Sponsor’s decision to post an Entry or any portion of an Entry on any Sponsor Site does not mean that the selected Entry has been selected as a winning Entry.

By submitting an Entry, you grant Amazon and agents permission to use, without charge, portions of your Entry, along with your name and stated the reason for writing the submitted Book (if provided) for any purpose in connection with this Contest. You also grant Sponsor the right to edit the formatting and display of your Entry and to create literary or any other types of effects in respect to your Book without compensation or approval. In addition, to the extent that any moral rights (for example, the right to attribution and the right to integrity) apply, you waive (and to the extent that these rights may not be waived, agree irrevocably not to assert) your moral rights in your Entry for purposes of this Contest, including, without limitation, our use of excerpts from your Book in connection with this Contest.

CONDITIONS OF PARTICIPATION.

Each Finalist and the Grand Prize winner will be required to sign and return an Eligibility Affidavit; Liability and Publicity Release or other such forms as requested by Sponsor. Prior to awarding a prize, Sponsor may, in its sole discretion, require the potential Finalists and Grand Prize winner to sign the Publishing Agreement and such additional documents Sponsor decides are necessary to confirm eligibility, to obtain a liability/publicity release, and to award any prize. Failure to return any required document by the date requested by Sponsor will deem the winner as ineligible to receive the prize. If any documentation is not returned by the specified dates or if a potential winner is deemed ineligible prior to the prize being awarded, Sponsor may, in its sole discretion, award the prize to the next entrant receiving the highest score.

ADDITIONAL TERMS.

To the maximum extent permitted by law, Sponsor reserves the right, in its sole discretion and without prior notice, to change these Official Rules or cancel the Contest at any time, or to modify, terminate, or suspend the Contest should viruses, worms, bugs, unauthorized human intervention, or other causes beyond Sponsor’s control corrupt or impair the administration, security, fairness, or proper play of the Contest or submission of Entries, or in the event Sponsor does not receive a minimum of 500 qualified Entries from separate eligible entrants. Sponsor is not responsible for any human or other error that may occur in the processing of the Entries, nor is it responsible for any error, omission, interruption, deletion, defect, delay in operation or transmission, theft or destruction, or unauthorized access to, or alteration of, Entries, or for technical, network, telephone, computer, hardware or software, malfunctions of any kind, or inaccurate transmission of, or failure to receive any entry information on account of technical problems or traffic congestion on the Internet or at any Website. Sponsor is not responsible for injury or damage to any entrant’s or any other computer resulting from downloading any materials in connection with the Contest. Sponsor reserves the right, in its sole discretion, to disqualify any individual found to be tampering with the entry process, the outcome of the Contest, or the operation of the Contest or Website; to be acting in violation of these Official Rules; or to be acting in an unsportsmanlike or disruptive manner or with intent to annoy, abuse, threaten, or harass any other person.

CAUTION: ANY ATTEMPT BY ANY INDIVIDUAL TO DELIBERATELY DAMAGE ANY WEBSITE OR UNDERMINE THE LEGITIMATE OPERATION OF THE COMPETITION MAY BE A VIOLATION OF CRIMINAL AND CIVIL LAWS, AND SHOULD SUCH AN ATTEMPT BE MADE, SPONSOR AND ITS AFFILIATES RESERVE THE RIGHT TO SEEK DAMAGES AND/OR OTHER RELIEF FROM ANY SUCH PERSON TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW.

JURISDICTION AND GOVERNING LAW.

The Contest is governed by the laws of India. Any disputes arising out of and in connection with this Offer shall be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of New Delhi only. Further, in any such dispute, under no circumstances will entrants be permitted to obtain awards for, and hereby waive all rights to claim, punitive, incidental or consequential damages, including attorneys' fees, other than entrant’s actual out-of-pocket expenses (e.g. costs associated with entering), and entrant further waives all rights to have damages multiplied or increased. Entrants agree that the decisions of Sponsor and the judges related to the Contest are final.

SPONSOR.

Amazon Asia-Pacific Holdings Pte. Ltd., Singapore
One George Street, 
Singapore 049145

PRIZE PROVIDERS.

Sponsor and Westland Publications Limited.

WAIVER OF LIABILITY.

Neither Sponsor nor the Prize Provider(s) will be responsible or liable for: (i) any failure to receive entries due to transmission failures or other conditions beyond their reasonable control; (ii) any late, lost, misrouted, garbled or distorted or damaged transmissions or entries; (iii) any disruptions, injuries, losses or damages caused by events beyond their reasonable control; or (iv) any printing or typographical errors in any materials associated with the Contest.

GENERAL RELEASE.

By entering the Contest you release the Released Parties from any liability whatsoever for any claims, costs, injuries, losses, or damages of any kind arising out of or in connection with the Contest or with the acceptance, possession, or use of any prize, except as prohibited by law.

COPYRIGHT.

The Contest and all accompanying materials are copyright protected by Amazon.com, Inc. and its affiliates. All rights reserved.

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TL;DR

here are pics to explain for the people too lazy to read everything lol