The Sobol Award, a U.S. literary contest offering unpublished authors a $100,000 US contract, has been cancelled for lack of interest.

Organizers announced Monday that no further manuscripts would be accepted, and that applicants would be sent entry-fee refunds and have their manuscripts returned.

The prize has been controversial since it was announced last September because it charged each writer an $85 US entry fee.

Bloggers, agents and other critics criticized the fee requirement and the terms of the contract that writers would have to sign.

The prize would have included a contract with publisher Simon & Schuster and editing by veteran Brigitte Weeks. Novelist Alice Hoffman was among those on the judging panel.

But interest remained low, even after Simon & Schuster offered to publish the three best books and pushed back the deadline from Dec. 31 to March 31, 2007.

Organizers expected up to 50,000 manuscripts, but received less than 1,000.

"Maybe the message is that unpublished writers have been exploited in so many different ways that it's difficult to launch an effort, regardless of whether it's in good faith or not," said  Paul Aiken, executive director of the Authors Guild, which represents thousands of published writers.

"Charging people is fundamentally suspect and it's hard to overcome that."

Sobol Literary Enterprises, a for-profit venture started by technology entrepreneur Gur Shomron, created the award as a means "to discover talented, unknown fiction writers and help them get the recognition they deserve."

With files from the Associated Press