One of Gather’s most well-known competitions is First Chapters, which the site devised with Simon & Schuster imprint Touchstone and Borders (http://FirstChapters.Gather.com). When it launched in January, First Chapters called on first-time authors to submit manuscripts for a full-length work of fiction. Tens of thousands of Gather members narrowed the pool from 2,700 entries down to five by voting on the first chapters of each manuscript. Then, a “Grand Prize Judging Panel” chose the winners from the finalists. The panel surprisingly chose two winners instead of the originally intended one, and both books were published by Touchstone in September. “[The competition] was covered in The New York Times, on CNN. It was picked up all over the world by the [Associated Press]. It generated tremendous excitement,” says Rosendorf.