Friday, April 29, 2011

Help a Struggling Author!

Good news: The Last Protector is an official nominee in the "Global E-Book Awards" competition. (Yay!!)

Bad news: being "nominated" for a competition just means I did the paperwork correctly. It doesn't mean that any of their judges have yet read the book, or for that matter that Global E-Book Awards World Domination Headquarters has even received a copy. All that stuff comes later. (Aww...)

My past experience with book competitions (which all authors are encouraged to enter, as they are supposed to be marketing tools) is that competition follows these steps:
  1. The author fills out a form and sends it to the contest promoter. Along with some money, of course.
  2. Once the form has been found to be complete and correct (i.e., accompanied by the appropriate amount of money), the author or publisher sends the promoter a copy of the book.
  3. The author then waits to see what happens next.
And step 4... well, much of the time, for many authors, there is no step 4 beyond perhaps going to the contest website a few months later and discovering that some other book won the contest. And, of course, filing the receipt for the entry fee amongst the business expenses.

To its credit, the "Global E-Book Award" contest seems to be at least a bit different. For one thing, during "National Read an E-Book Week," they waived the entry fee. Second, they gave me this cool little badge to put on my website, saying that my book is officially a "nominee." And third, they gave my book a page on their site, which people who are perusing the site looking for interesting books might stumble across.

This third thing is where you come in, dear reader, should you wish to help out a struggling author (or, if you don't particularly want to help me, you may still want to help my publisher make a profit): go to the Last Protector page on the Global E-Book Award site, and register a vote by clicking on one of the ratings in that line of blue letter eeeee's just above the book blurb (it would be nice if you clicked on one of the more favorable ratings, of course). While the contest officials say the number of favorable votes won't determine who wins, they also say that the judges will be able to see the results of the voting. So... click away... and thanks much.

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