Soon to Be Famous Illinois Author Project!

The Soon To Be Famous Blog

Statewide winners announced

The winners of the inaugural 2018 Indie Author Project statewide contests have been announced. The Soon to Be Famous winner, Heather Bentley, and her book, Sweetest Heartbreak, now competes with the other winners for top honors to be announced in April 2019.

Get all the details about the other winners here.

Manuscript Contest Now Accepting Nominations

The Soon to Be Famous Illinois Author Manuscript Project is now accepting nominations from authors with unpublished manuscripts from libraries across Illinois. The contest opens November 1, 2018 and closes January 2, 2019. Update 1/3/2019: This contest is now closed to entries and in its judging phase.

The winner receives these valuable prizes:

  • Professional line editor who will work with you to polish your novel.
  • Professionally designed cover.
  • Self-publishing guidance from past STBF winners and committee members.
  • Finished book automatically entered as semi-finalist status in the 2020 Soon to Be Famous Illinois Author Project contest.

The contest is open now and closes January 2, 2019. We will accept complete unpublished manuscripts of adult fiction in book length (50,000 to 100,000 words) from Illinois authors.

Librarians: To start the nomination process, click here.

Authors: For details about the contest and how to submit your work to libraries for nomination, click here.


Announcing: Manuscript Project

The Project’s ongoing success these past five years made the project organizers think about what else libraries could do to support budding authors. The result: A brand-new Manuscript Project. Read on for more details about this exciting addition.

Winners Reviews

We thank Library Journal for enabling us to honor those who work as self-published authors in a unique way. They posted the reviews for Heather Bentley and Daniel Rosenberg, STBF's 2018 and 2017 winners. Congratulations Heather and Daniel.

Author Heather Bentley Wins 2018 Soon to be Famous Illinois Author Project Contest

Drumroll please – the librarians have spoken. The 2018 winner of the Soon to be Famous Illinois Author Project is Chicago suburbanite author Heather Bentley.

2018 Winner – Heather Bentley

On Thursday, April 26 we announced the winner of the 2018 contest: Heather Bentley. Here are images and a video from the event.

Watch the 2018 Winner Announcement Live on YouTube

Here is the archive recording of the live winner announcement from Thursday, April 26 at 1:00 p.m. where we announced who will Soon to be Famous.

Meet the 2018 Finalists

Our librarian judges continue to review the books from our three finalists. We will make the winner announcement April 26 at 1:00 p.m. at Fountaindale Public Library.

Announcing our 2018 Finalists!

Our librarian judges have scored the entries. And now we are excited to announce this year’s finalists for the 2018 Soon To Be Famous Illinois Author contest. Congratulations!

Announcing our 2018 Semi-Finalists!

This year 46 Illinois authors submitted their works of fiction for adult readers to the 2018 Soon To Be Famous Illinois Author contest. we are excited to announce the semi-finalists for the 2018 contest.

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