Now that everybody's had a good laugh at Touchstone's new venture with Media Predict, we can check in on the latest developments in its similarly chuckle-inducing Gather.com-sponsored competition. According to a press release sent out this morning, the five First Chapters finalists have been selected. "The Gather.com community has ignited the blaze of competition and taken user-generated content to a whole new level," claims Gather CEO Tom Gerace, who will sift through the pages with Touchstone publisher Mark Gompertz, fellow Simon & Schuster exec Carolyn Reidy, and... Borders CEO George Jones? I was going to go with a "he stopped loving her manuscript today" joke here, but, come on, doesn't this guy have a corporate overhaul he needs to be focusing on or something?

After the winner is announced next week, he or she will receive $5,000, then Touchstone will publish the book, which will apparently get face-out placement at Borders. So maybe Jones does have a good reason to keep a hand in this, and make sure his store isn't saddled with a disaster...