The Self-Published American

The Moonbeam Children’s Book Competition is now accepting entries.

Announcing 2nd Annual Moonbeam Children’s Book Awards

“Celebrating youthful curiosity, discovery and learning through books and reading.”

•Entry now open – early-bird entry fee $85 per category, valid until June 15th
•New categories include Children’s Poetry, Environmental Issues and Spanish Language Book

Click here to download complete guidelines and entry form:

Announcing the call for entries into the second annual Moonbeam Children’s Book Awards www.MoonbeamAwards.com, designed to honor the year’s best children’s books, authors and illustrators. The new book awards program is accepting entries until August 16th, 2008 for books with 2007 or 2008 copyrights or that were released in 2007 or 2008, and is open to authors, illustrators, and publishers of children’s books written in English and intended for the North American market.

Presented by Jenkins Group and IndependentPublisher.com, the Moonbeam Children’s Book Awards are intended to bring increased recognition to exemplary children’s books and their creators, and to support childhood literacy and life-long reading. Awards will be given in 30 categories covering the full range of subjects, styles and age groups that children’s books are written and published in today.
“The inaugural Moonbeam Awards were a huge success,” says Jim Barnes, Awards Director at Jenkins Group. “We had a great turnout of support from the children’s book publishing community, and we’re going to make this year’s awards even better. Last year we recognized a wonderfully diverse group of authors and publishers, from first-timers to seasoned veterans, and the award-winners make up an amazing ‘must-read’ list of books for kids.”

Click here to view last year’s results, photos, etc.

Jenkins Group has been involved in book packaging, marketing and distribution since 1988, and many of its founders and employees now have children and grandchildren who strongly influence the company culture with their youthful exuberance and love of books.

“We all have kids, grandkids, nieces and nephews, and we all recognize the role books play in enriching children’s lives,” says company founder Jerrold Jenkins, father of four children ranging from ages 5 to 15. “As our society has gotten more complex and growing up has become more complicated, children’s book authors and publishers have risen to the occasion, creating books that not only celebrate the joys of childhood, but also help families deal with its challenges. We want to recognize and reward the best of these books and bring them to the attention of parents, booksellers, librarians – and to the kids themselves.”

Click here to enter online:

Click here to download complete guidelines and entry form.

To learn more about the Moonbeam Children’s Book Awards visit www.MoonbeamAwards.com
Questions? Contact Jim Barnes, Awards Director
email: jimb@bookpublishing.com
phone: 1.800.644.0133 x1011
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Not my type of book, but I like the book trailer. I may buy this book as gifts for my nephews. The book trailer sold me.

Stephen G. Bucher’s Daily Monster

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I wrote a few weeks ago about what to do with bad reviews. We all get them. Some of them are constructive. Some of them aren’t. John Scalzi, author, blogger and all around contrarian (I mean that as a compliment), has posted a collection of his Amazon one star reviews. Why? Because he’s of the mind that you should embrace your bad reviews. All my bad reviews have been in blogs, and they talked about my appearance and mental prowess so I can’t join in the fun, but give Scalzi’s reviews a read. You’ll suddenly realize you’re not alone.

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Author of Beyond September, George Vickery catapulted into the top 100 of the Contemporary Literature & Fiction category on Amazon.com on April 1, 2008. How did he do it? Well, you’ve probably heard me refer to Scott Sigler’s strategy of enlisting fans, friends and family to purchase his book on April 1, 2007. A strategy that helped him secure a very nice publishing deal (It doesn’t hurt that Scott is a great writer). I talked with George about this strategy months before his book was published, and when his book was available for sale, he decided to incorporate a similar strategy. Here’s George’s email (reprinted with his permission):

Thanks for the idea. Let’s see if I can remember how it happened:

When it appeared that my book, Beyond September, would be print-ready and on Amazon.com some time in March, I chose April 1 as my target date. First, it is one of the few celebrated days (such as 4th of July) that has the date in the title. So then I decided to call it “The April Fool Caper” so as to have it more memorable. I was trying to get my audience to have a reason to buy the book other than the usual. In this case, they would join in the conspiracy–be part of a back-door move on the monstrous publishing industry. Also, it was a Tuesday, and maybe a light sales day on Amazon.com.

Having once owned my own Public Relations firm in Miami, I then wrote a press release which I pedaled locally. I also got my POD company’s PR writers to put a paragraph in the regular press release that I had purchased as part of my package.

I had a bunch of business card blanks, so I printed the book’s cover on one side and on the other side I teased about The April Fool Caper and listed my website. My wife Kitty and I passed these around a lot. She got some results from her beauty salon and other commercial sites we visit.

But my biggie was email. On March 15, I alerted my regular list that this would happen. Then I began to collect email addresses. You’d be surprised how many people do not use “Undisclosed Recipients.” Some of my “too-much-time-on-their-hands” friends forward a forwarded forward…ad infinitum. Thousands of names. Email attached.

I had created a website, www.georgelvickery.com through WebforAuthors, and I used my homepage to promote the April Fool Caper. With the help of Marshall Turner at WFA, I installed a direct link to my book’s page on Amazon.com.

The hard part was to keep the book out of the hands on local bookstores until after April 1, and also hope that people didn’t click in to buy too early. Some did, but Hey, that’s a sale!

George

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The line “It takes a big man to cry, but it takes a bigger man to laugh at that man,” was not written by the fictitious Jack Handey. It was written by the real Jack Handey. He’s a real, living, breathing human being. No kidding! I thought he was a figment of some member of the Saturday Night Live writing staffs’ mind. But no, he’s alive and well and living in New Mexico where he still pens Jack Handey witticisms and long form writings. In fact, his latest book What I’d Say to the Martians and Other Veiled Threats is now available on Amazon and bookstores everywhere. Yahoo News has a great story on him. You can click here, Jack Handey’s Thoughts Get Deeper to read it. Here’s an excerpt:

“What I’d Say to the Martians and Other Veiled Threats,” published by Hyperion with a first print run of 25,000 copies, contains a few of his favorite “Deep Thoughts” and a handful of “little tiny stories,” such as the dinosaur tale. But the meat of the book is shaped by short pieces such as the title story in which a caged narrator rants to his alien captors…

“Instead of going one leap forward, he goes about three leaps forward,” says (Steve) Martin of Handey’s humor. Martin happily recalls jokes Handey wrote for him, like for one bit called “What I Believe” that was rattled off as a list. One entry: “I believe that robots are stealing my luggage.”

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I realize South Park can be really offensive, but this is actually pretty funny.

South Park: The Day The Internet Stood Still

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Ever wonder what a publisher thinks? I could be really weird, but I do all the time. Here’s a great interview with Morgan Entrekin, president and publisher of indie press Grove/ Atlantic done by Publishers Weekly Editor-In-Chief Sara Nelson. Pay close attention to what he says about word-of-mouth and ask yourself where you’ve heard that before.

Click here to watch video.

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