Ovation without representation

A new and lucrative literary prize has just been started, with some unusual credentials for the winner: The book must be unpublished and the author must not have an agent.

The Sobol Award offers $100,000 for the best unreleased, agent-less novel, with prizes of $25,000 and $10,000 for the runners-up. It was created by Sobol Literary Enterprises, a for-profit venture started by technology entrepreneur Gur Shomron.

“For many talented writers, finding a publisher is more difficult than writing their novel,” Shomron said in a statement. Shomron himself had to shop a novel, “NETfold,” which he ended up self-publishing, making it ineligible for a Sobol prize.