"Roundheads and Ramblings"
awards
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Posted on Thursday, November 24, 2011 3:59 PM
Here's one more excerpt from Carolyn Howard-Johnson -- this time on what to do if you win an award for your book.
A list of things authors should do with their awards once they’ve won
them appeared in the first edition of The Frugal Book Promoter and,
because that information is so important, it appears in the just-released second edition,
too. Here is the list authors (or folks in any business, really!) will
want to keep for the day when they have an award they can use to help
with their branding. - Add your new honor to the Awards page of your media kit. If it’s
your first award, center it on a page of its own. Oh! And celebrate!
- Write your media release announcing this coup. (See Chapter Eleven of the second edition of The Frugal Book Promoter to learn to build a targeted media list and Chapter Twelve to learn to write a professional media release.)
- Post your news on media release distribution sites. Find a list of these sites here.
- Notify your professional organizations.
- Notify bookstores where you hope to have a signing and those where you have had a signing.
- Notify your college and high school. Some have press offices. Most publish magazines for alumni and their current students.
- Add this information to the signature feature (see Chapter Twenty) of your e-mail program.
- Add this honor to the biography template you use in future media
releases—the part that gives an editor background information on you.
- Use this information when you pitch TV or radio producers, editors
of newsletters and newspapers. and bloggers. It sets you apart from
others and defines you as an expert.
- If your book wins an award, order embossed gold labels from a company like http://labels-usa.com/embossed-labels.htm.
You or your distributor can apply them to your books’ covers. If you
win an important award, ask your publisher to redesign your bookcover or
dustcover to feature it a la the Caldecott medal given for
beautifully illustrated children’s books. If you don’t know this medal,
visit your local bookstore and ask to see books given this award. It’s
one of the most famous and most beautifully designed.
- If your book is published as an e-book only, ask for the contest’s
official badge or banner to use. If they don’t have one, make one of
your own using http://bannerfans.com/banner_maker.php.
- Be sure your award is front and center on your blog, your Web site, your Twitter wallpaper, and your social network pages.
- Your award should be evident on everything from your business card
to your checks and invoices. I use the footer of my stationery to tout
my major awards.
- Don’t forget to put your award in your e-mail signature.
- Frame your award certificate and hang it in your office to impress visitors and to inspire yourself to soar even higher!
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Posted on Thursday, October 20, 2011 8:42 AM
Would you ever consider paying someone $100.00 for the privilege of entering a book contest? Sound like a scam? Well, think again. Book contests can help your marketing efforts in many ways. Granted, $100.00 sounds like a lot of money to someone who is only selling a few books a month, and that amount does not cover the cost of the book itself or your mailing costs, either. But a charge of $100.00 or less is usually a legitimate one. Running a book contest is an expensive proposition. After all, someone has to pay for medals and ribbons, winner’s stickers, websites, postage, ads, and all the other related expenses. By charging relatively small fees, the sponsors of these contests are making it possible to reward many more fledgling authors.
Are you afraid the contest is rigged? If it has been operating for several years, you should be able to find a list of past winners. A legitimate contest should be listed in publications like Writers Markets or on the websites of the sponsoring organizations. By all means, do your homework, and find a contest that appears reputable and designed for writers like yourself. Then read the rules and jump in.
Are you afraid of rejection? Failure is something you might as well get used to if you’ve decided to become a writer. Every one of us could paper a room with our rejection letters. Lots of books just don’t make it. I saw a statistic recently that indicated that out of 1.2 million books published in the past year, only about 3000 of them will ever sell more than 50,000 copies. So welcome to the 99.75% of us who should not quit our day jobs. We all flounder together. A book contest may be just what you need to overcome that fear of failure. Even if you don’t win a thing, you’ll benefit.
You may be surprised to find that the very act of entering a contest makes you feel more confident about your own abilities. After all, you have written a book that meets the qualifications of an organization that awards good writing. You’ve followed guidelines and met a deadline. Best of all, you’ve proved to yourself that you have faith in your own work. That’s important.
If you don’t win, be sure to follow up. Many such contests are willing to provide you with their reviewers’ comments, so that you can learn what it was that they did not like about your book. If you can learn from your first attempt, you’ll have a better shot at future contests. Also take a look at the winners. Read their books or at least excerpts from them, so that you get an idea of what the reviewers liked about them. That’s another lesson learned.
And what if you do win? Even if you get nothing but an honorable mention sticker to put on your book, it will draw attention to your work and perhaps even help you sell more books. Publishers, agents, book sellers, and buyers are all impressed by those shiny little seals. A gold seal makes you stand out from that whole crowd of 1.2 million book authors. Win just one award, at any level, and you can call yourself an award-winning author. Put that on your website, display the seal or your medal everywhere you can, and use the award as a major factor in your marketing efforts.
This past year, I entered two contests — the Pinnacle Book Achievement Awards and the annual Military Writers Society of America Book Awards. Neither contest offered a Pulitzer or a Man Booker prize, but I profited greatly from both. Both contests give awards in many genres and are open to both traditional publishers and self-publishers. Both publish reviews of their book entries, and any self-publisher can use another book review. Remember that getting favorable publicity is a major part of your marketing effort.
Pinnacle Awards, presented by the North American Booksellers Exchange (NABE), come out every three months, but the award seal does not give dates. I won my “Best Historical Fiction” award for Summer 2011, but the seal shows only the award, not the date. The Military Writers Society of America (MWSA) awarded the same book a bronze medal for Biography. Again, the resulting seal shows only the award, not the date or genre. As soon as these contests announced their winners, my book sales began to improve. The NABE award resulted in my book being given a prominent display at two major book trade shows on the west coast. To receive my medal from MWSA, I traveled to their convention, where I met wonderfully congenial and supportive writers. I am much the richer (and not just in cash!) for the experiences these contests have given me. They were well worth the entry fees.
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Posted on Tuesday, October 04, 2011 10:10 AM
Hello, everyone. I'm back, after a week or so of traveling. Lovely to be home, even if it's only for a few days. We had an interesting trip through Ohio and Pennsylvania, even though it turned very cold. It made me happy to be a transplanted Southerner!
I didn't do a single bit of writing, but I've been thinking about mice in preparation for finishing off "The Second Mouse Gets the Cheese" by the end of the month. First came a few memories of mice I've known. (Road trips are wonderful for letting your thoughts go wherever they will.)
One of my favorite mice lived in a fancy Chinese restaurant in downtown London. The food was outstanding, the decor exquisite, service impeccable, and the floor was kept clean by a scurrying little mouse. We had visited this restaurant every time we traveled to England, with nothing but wonderful memories. But this night (and it was Christmas Eve) was different. A slight movement caught my eye, and I watched as a tiny mouse darted across the aisle between banquettes and under a table. I was almost convinced I had imagined him, when here he came again, headed for another table. No one else paid any attention, but I whispered to my husband, and as we watched, he made several more trips.
Finally, when a waiter asked if everything was satisfactory, I asked him in return if he knew there was a mouse in the room. "Oh, yes," he said, "he cleans up the crumbs under the table." Dumbfounded, I just started to laugh. Then he went on to say that after Christmas they would be closed for a remodeling project, and the mouse would find his way out during that time. When we were ready to leave, the owner came by our table and thanked us for not making a scene by giving me a lovely illustrated Chinese cook book. Maybe on another occasion I would have made more of a fuss, but on Christmas Eve it seemed fitting that the little mouse have his feast, too.
Another cheeky little fellow lived in our garage for a while. We had installed a bird feeder outside the breakfast nook window to keep our indoor cats entertained. The extra seed for the feeder was in a large plastic tub in the garage. One day I found the top ajar and peered in, only to meet the stare of a chubby little mouse, sitting on his haunches eating a sunflower seed. I tried to explain to him that we were cat people, and that there were four predators just on the other side of the door, but it didn't worry him. He lived in that seed bin for several days before he got bored and left.
I was still thinking about mice when we arrived at my cousin's daughter's family Amish market. It was like stepping back in time -- no canned goods and packaged meals. Fresh wheels of cheese made on the premises; produce still in the baskets from local fields; canning jars full of jellies, pickles, sauerkraut, and chowchow made from a family recipe; a flour mill; bulk herbs; and a peanut butter grinder all reminded us of what food can really taste like. And the mice? Well, they were there, too. Not live ones, but catnip mice, hand-sewn by my cousin's Amish neighbor. The cousin runs a cat rescue shelter (cat-lover genes definitely run in our family), and they sell the mice to support the shelter. Before we left there, we had made arrangements to sell both the cheese and the wonderful mice on the website I'll be building for "The Second Mouse Gets the Cheese."
After a wonderful visit with long-lost family members, we went on to the Military Writers Society of America Conference in Pittsburgh -- where I learned first hand what it is like to be a mouse! It was a great conference, welcoming, and informative. Still I felt like a bit of a mouse, sneaking around the outskirts of this assembly of military veterans and widely published authors. I could only nibble at their experience and knowledge, and I felt honored to be presented with a bronze medal from them for my own Civil War book. So thank ou to all of them for welcoming the mouse-like me. I learned a lot from these writers, not the least of which is an understanding of how a mouse feels.
Back soon with some columns that will be going into the mouse book.
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Posted on Monday, April 11, 2011 1:19 PM
I was pleased to receive "The Inspiring Blog Award" from Dierdre Coppel, who recently visited the Katzenhaus Books website.
It's always rewarding to learn that someone has enjoyed browsing the website and reading my blog. But one of the real pleasure of blogging comes from passing these awards on to others. So in that spirit, here are my nominations for blogs that inspire me to keep working day after day. If your blog appears here, feel free to copy the image onto your blog and then pass it along to those who inspire you.
Civil War Emancipation http://cwemancipation.wordpress.com/feed/
Helen Hollick's Muse and Views http://helenhollick.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default
The Blood-Red Pencil http://bloodredpencil.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default
Two Old Horses and Me http://jeanmcbride.wordpress.com/feed/
Liz Logic: Aging with Abandon http://www.lizlogic.com/
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Posted on Thursday, December 09, 2010 6:19 PM
I am thrilled to announce that I have been chosen as a recipient of the Versatile Blogger award - nominated by author Helen Hollick. It is the first award I've had for Blogging - thank you, Helen!
According to the rules, I must now tell you seven things about myself - so I'll tell you seven things you probably would not read anywhere else!
1. We're celebrating our 50th wedding anniversary next week.
2. I used to direct a church choir.
3. But I really wanted to sing in Broadway musicals.
4. I've always had a cat (or 4).
5. But I secretly want to be a Leader Dog puppy raiser.
6. I started grad school in my 40s and landed a tenure-track position at a top-rated college at the age of 50.
7. Cinnamon makes me sneeze.
I now have to select seven blogs to pass the award to. I read these every day and find them informative, entertaining, and inspiring in many different ways.
http://fumblingthruchaos.blogspot.com/ http://minorrevisions.blogspot.com/ http://brightstarreignited.blogspot.com/ http://patriciastoltey.blogspot.com/ http://terryodell.blogspot.com/ http://insaeculasaeculorum.blogspot.com/ http://writingasjoe.blogspot.com/
If one of these blogs is yours, please send me your e-mail address so I can award you your badge as "A Versatile Blogger." |
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