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Book Contests For Better or For Worse

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I might be the only author in history to have received a book award for an unpublished novel, then 44 years later, win additional awards for the same novel. One of the oldest clubs for authors is the National Writers Association, founded in 1937, supporting authors both published and unpublished. When I joined in 1980 (then called the National Writers Club), the governing council included Clive Cussler and Jerzy Kosinski. In 1981, I entered the club’s annual book contest for unpublished manuscripts. Genres were the basic dichotomy back then — fiction and non-fiction — whereas today, with so many self-published books on the market, it’s not unusual for genres to be divided into 20 or 30 sub-genres in book contests. To complicate things, some book awards hand out “honorable mentions” to all participants, then pitch an expensive marketing campaign. But even the legitimate contests have proliferated as they aim to help published authors rise toward a major publisher for their future works. And in spite of everything gone ‘internet’ in publishing, the transition to a major literary agent and/or major publisher is usually based on sales figures from the most recent book.

If you read Part One of PROGNOSIS GUARDED (PG), you learned that OU Professor Jack Bickham read my 1977 draft of that book, and anointed it with this: “I don’t know how in the hell you wrote such a nice novel the first time out. I’ve never seen a first book half this good.” After the stars were wiped from my eyes with the publication of COMA by Robin Cook (same story as mine), I began to work on changing the storyline as much as possible to get away from the COMA label. By 1981, I had the version that I recently published in softcover. So, readers today are not reading the COMA look-a-like of 1977, but the revised version of 1981 that was still intriguing enough to warrant a well-known Hollywood agent (Harold Greene) and a NY publisher (St Martins Press). Then, all that stuff fell through as well. This is why the cover of PROGNOSIS GUARDED is the famous Hollywood sign fading into a cemetery (while Part Two relates to Hollywood and literal cemeteries).

When I finally gave up on PROGNOSIS GUARDED, it was the 1981 version that got stuffed in the attic, and I moved on to FLATBELLIES and the beginning of a nice writing career. In fact, I’ve said on many occasions that PROGNOSIS GUARDED is the origin story for FLATBELLIES, the latter being a completely different genre born of my transition away from medical thrillers.

When I uncovered the PROGNOSIS GUARDED manuscript decades later, in 2024, I decided to publish it, along with an explanation as to the bizarre travels the manuscript had taken. I had no idea if it would resonate with today’s readers or not. Certainly, the 1981 version preserved enough of the key elements of a medical thriller (COMA was the first one) that should carry the formula like any good murder mystery.

As a point of interest in this attic discovery, in addition to the only known copy of the manuscript, there was a copy of my results from the entry I had made to the National Writers Club “Book Manuscript Competition.” Oddly enough, the congratulatory letter was accompanied by the score sheet the judge had used. The first paragraph congratulated me on 7th Prize (out of “hundreds”), but it was the score sheet descriptors that would have made Jack Bickham’s original comment seem weak in comparison.

Ten criteria were judged (theme, plot, characterization, descriptions, dialogue, etc), and all 10 had typed comments, all in the superlative. Scoring for each of the 10 criteria could range from any numerical fraction above 0 to 1.0. And with a maximum additive score of 10, my score was….well….a 10. Now don’t ask me why I didn’t win 1st Prize, but I suspect there were at least 6 others who also got 10s, and we were then ranked. Doesn’t matter. What did matter was the P.S. at the bottom of the critique sheet, not part of the official score, where the judge added this: “You may want to find a good agent to handle this since it could have movie or TV possibilities.”

And this was four years after COMA. With regard to that mega-hit, the judge wrote this about my 1981 version of PG: “Your idea, while kin to COMA, is enough different and creative to fly.” (And yet, even with my persistence in pitching PG, rejections would continue another 12 years before I would stick PG in the attic.)

I knew friends wouldn’t believe everything that was happening at this time, so I placed 2 of the key documents in the book, PROGNOSIS GUARDED, Part One — 1) my contract with Hollywood agent Harold Greene, and 2) the letter from Jack Bickham. I chose not to place additional documentation, but if I had, the 3rd document would have been the judge’s scoring sheet from the 1981 competition.

Fast forward from 1981. Same manuscript, only now in October 2024. This time, as a published manuscript, I would enter PG in book contests to see if the same sort of reaction would emerge as had been the case 44 years ago. Much to my surprise, the feedback has been strong, with frantic page-turning near the end as described by readers. Customer reviews on Amazon have been remarkably complimentary, especially noting those reviewers I do NOT know personally. Then, the results from book contests started being announced in 2025, and the reviews that accompanied my awards were quite the surprise. It was like I’d written the book yesterday. The ending seems to grab readers like it did decades ago, and it’s nice to know that my characters are — to quote Paul Simon — are “Still crazy after all these years.”

PROGNOSIS GUARDED book contest results:

1981 — National Writers Club Manuscript Competition — 7th prize (“perfect 10” score) from “hundreds” of entries

2025 — Independent Press Association — Distinguished Favorite in medical thriller genre

2025 — International Impact Book Award — “Winner” (Top Ten Books from 120 submissions) in suspense/thriller genre

2025 — Eric Hoffer Book Award Finalist (Top 10%) in suspense/thriller genre

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Questions (so far) about PROGNOSIS: GUARDED

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Is PROGNOSIS: GUARDED (PG) a prequel to FLATBELLIES?

No. Although PG was written much earlier (first draft 1977) than FLATBELLIES, the story in PG is unrelated to FLATBELLIES, published in 2001. That said, Part One in this “new” PG is the true story of a 17-year effort to get PG published, to no avail. Ordinarily, such an account would be ho-hum, as literary rejection is far more common than literary acceptance. But there’s a difference here — the original PG was pegged as a literary blockbuster “soon to be a major motion picture.” The story of what happened after that first draft in 1977 was a life-changing experience for the 29 y/o author (me). And, the collapse of the original PG led to a major switch in genres on my part, dropping the medical thriller plans and adopting coming-of-age fiction. Thus, Part One of the “new” PG is an “origin story,” explaining the emergence of FLATBELLIES. Part Two is the medical thriller that caused all the controversy and confusion, in print for the first time.

What is the book’s cover trying to show?

The famous Hollywood sign is disappearing, and at the base of the sign is a cemetery. The cover is representing both Part One and Part Two. Part One of PG is the death of a Hollywood dream. Part Two of PG is the novel that deals with orchestrated medical murders of the rich and famous of Hollywood. (In some of the printings, the cemetery at the base of the Hollywood sign is dark and hard to see.)

Is the story of PROGNOSIS: GUARDED pure fiction?

Yes. It’s the only one of my six novels that did not borrow from actual events.

Why isn’t PROGNOSIS: GUARDED available at my local bookstore?

Long story, but I felt that combining Part One and Part Two into a single book (one non-fiction and the other fiction) was going to make traditional publishers squeamish. So, I went the route of publishing through an Amazon resource that gave me full editorial control, but also requires sales to come through Amazon. Depending on how it goes, I might make arrangements with booksellers in OKC to sell PG, as we are ramping up for a 25th anniversary edition of FLATBELLIES, and PG is the start of that process by telling the origin story first. So, if we release the special edition of FLATBELLIES next year, it would likely be sold side by side with PG at bookstores.

What’s best way to purchase the book then?

Online purchase of softcover print ($17): https://store.bookbaby.com/book/prognosis-guarded1

Kindle purchase per Amazon, or however you are accustomed to buying ebooks.

Do you still speak at book clubs?

Yes. I attend any book club within a 2-3 hour driving radius of OKC. Anything beyond that, I do online. Also, some clubs are not specifically book clubs (social clubs, study clubs, etc.), yet they will ask me to speak about writing and publishing in general, or to discuss one of my novels from the past (see http://www.johnalbedo.com). Or, there is great interest in my one true crime story covering the 1923 murder of my grandfather (see http://www.killingalbertberch.com). Contact me through Facebook Messaging to schedule. Or, email alanhollingsworth@cox.net.

I read COMA when it first came out, and now that I’ve read PROGNOSIS: GUARDED, I don’t think the two books are that much alike. What gives?

Recall from Part One that I don’t have a copy of the original 1977 manuscript, which was virtually identical to COMA, complete with suspended human bodies. Several New York publishers (most notably St. Martins Press) asked me to change my version as much as possible to allow publication as an original story. The 1980-81 version I found in the attic (the published version) was the end product of that effort, taking away the science fiction component and transferring the genre to a medical murder mystery. I thought the changes were adequate, but publishers still ruled it “too much like COMA.” This was likely due to the fact that the “medical thriller” was still a new concept, so my revised version was compared to the only other successful thriller at the time — COMA. Had there been 100 medical thrillers on the market, I think PG would have had no trouble falling into that pool. (Remember this from Part One — when Random House rejected my book as “too much like COMA,” the Senior Editor called PROGNOSIS: GUARDED a “hospital intrigue story.”)

Once Again, It’s Time for Star Search

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My “new” book release is PROGNOSIS: GUARDED, a medical thriller drafted originally in 1977, making the novel nearly a half century old. Of all the author duties that accompany a book launch, the worst is “begging for stars” on Amazon Customer Reviews. Somehow, the star system (under 4 stars, the book does not exist) has bypassed professional reviews, making the Customer Review the most important parameter other than actual sales. So, if you read the book — available in softcover and Kindle, sold only online (see below) — and feel inspired, here’s the link to Customer Reviews: https://amzn.to/3Nuoyza

To help explain the 47-year gap between the first draft and publication, I added an introductory segment, such that our marketing “blurbs” read something like this:

Terror is timeless. This 1977 medical thriller will have you turning pages faster than you can say “Robin Cook” (whose 1977 novel COMA defined a new genre). But what happened to PROGNOSIS: GUARDED between 1977 and 2024? PART ONE takes the reader on a wild ride through the world of publishing and the life-changing impact the book had upon the author whose original draft was a locked and loaded blockbuster (or so everyone thought). PART TWO is the novel itself — PROGNOSIS: GUARDED, still crazy after all these years.