Category: Publishing

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To Book Award, or Not to Book Award?

Book awards, book awards, do I want thee, book awards?
Let’s take a look at three possible book awards.
Next Generation Indie Book Awards offers cash prizes and seals for winners and finalists, which can enhance a book’s cover and validate it for readers. Their current promotion allows authors to enter one category and get another free. Popular categories include “first novel” or “horror,” but avoid “general fiction,” as it tends to be overcrowded. Here are the categories that you can choose from for this award.

What do seals look like on a book cover? See ECHOES FROM THE HOCKER HOUSE.

Other awards to consider include the Eric Hoffer Award (currently discounted by $15):
 Registration link. Information link.
The National Federation of Press Women (NFPW) contest, which often sees fewer fiction entries, is open to all genders, despite its name, and early entry costs less. Entry Link.

Awards are a personal choice—some authors value the credibility they bring, while others prefer to avoid the cost. If you publish with my publishing company, Current Words Publishing (CWP), your book will stand out due to professional editing, formatting, and design, improving your chances of success. Plus, we can add any award seals to your book cover at any time.

Why do awards charge fees? Running contests involves hiring judges, administrators, and PR teams, much like publishing requires professional services. At CWP, we offer high-quality editing, production, and promotional support. Publishing is an investment, and a successful writing career is built over time, not on one book.

If your book is in production for 2025, aim to have it available by July to maximize award eligibility. If you’re considering publishing with us, we offer free sample edits and meet-and-greet sessions to demonstrate the value we provide. Some awards are closed to authors who self-publish, which is another benefit of publishing with me and Current Words.

Ready to pursue an award? Let my company help you showcase your success.

Happy Black Friday—enjoy those leftovers! I know I’m enjoying mine!

Dianne

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JOIN ME? IN THE BEWILDERNESS

I spent a transformative hour this morning in the Bewilderness with poet Ellis Elliott. I signed up for her course and spent an hour with a group of other authors as we put the rubber on the road and wrote in response to two poems Ellis shared with us. I struggle with giving my own writing practice the time and respect it deserves, so it took a lot of hemming and hawing for me to allow myself to spend this money on myself/my writing, to register, and think I was even three minutes late, as I found other things that definitely needed to be done right away before I joined the class. During the session, which lasted the perfect amount of time, IMHO, we each came up with two pieces. They were remarkably different, and some (mine, I’m going to say) were less polished than others, which was fine, because polish isn’t the point. What is the point is going barefoot in the grass, or, in my case, the mud. Getting in there and feeling it is the point, and getting it down on the stubbornly Teflon pages I always seem to have… Why won’t my writing stick there? Well’p, it stuck today. And, guess what: no one says a peep about anyone else’s writing, so it is 100% a safe space where you create, and off you go into your own ether, unmolested by critique. 

I loved it, and I cannot recommend it enough. 

Why don’t you sign-up already?

Bewilderness Writing