Dianne E. Butts's Blog: Dianne E. Butts' Blog, page 9

Campaign to get into the International Christian Retail Show!

I have a great opportunity to take my three most-recent books to the International Christian Retail Show. But I need help to get in the door!

The International Christian Retail Show (ICRS) is a closed trade show (meaning not open to the public). It is a trade show where book publishers and other companies that create products to be sold in, or otherwise used for, Christian retail outlets show their wares to Christian retailers, such as Christian bookstores. This is done primarily through half-hour book signings where authors sign and give away the featured book. (No sales allowed.)

Almost all the the major Christian publishers attend.

My three most-recent books have been published by Pix-N-Pens Publishing (PNP), which is a small publisher that opened only two years ago in 2011. Owned by Tracy Ruckman, PNP has a sister publishing company called Write Integrity Press (WIP).

Because these two publishing companies are small and new, they do not have big budgets to pay all the expenses required to take part in this trade show, we're asking for you help.

What are the expenses?For a publisher to hold a book signing at the International Christian Retail Show, there are several requirements:
Each author entering the show must have a badge to get in. There are five authors going, besides Tracy and possibly other helpers.Fees for renting booth space.Must provide a minimum of 60 of each book featured to be given away (not sold). This means not only the cost of the books but the shipping to get them there. Multiply this times five authors. Multiplies more if the author is representing more that one book. I will be representing three!As you can see, it cots a pretty penny to get this all done.

Are you raising money to pay for the authors' trips?No. Each of the five authors and Tracy are all paying their own travel expenses to get there, including their travel, hotel, and meals. The money we are raising is only to pay for the requirements to hold our book signings at the show.

Where do I contribute?We've set up a fundraising campaign over at FaithFunder.com called Meet Us in St. Louis 2013.

There we have a video that runs about 4 minutes. It made me laugh out loud! That's me there, in the first photo and the last photo and a few more in between.

Be sure to check out the list of incentives down the right side of the page. For as little as $5 you can get a digital book of your choice. For $10 you can get a print book, a real bargain since most of our books are more and this also includes shipping! If you'd like to donate a little more, you can get critiques of a large chunk of your novel or several pages of your screenplay (by yours truly). You can get 12 copies of a book for your Book Club plus a visit from the author via Skype. If you're in the St. Louis area during ICRS in June, we can do dinner. There's even a gift basket from Bolivia! There's much more, so please take a list.

Who all is going?All the authors of Pix-N-Pens and Write Integrity Press were invited to go. Five responded. Besides me, the others are:
Fay Lamb, author of Stalking Willow and Charisse (The Ties that Bind Series)Vicki Tiede, author of Parenting on Your Knees: Prayers and Practical Guidance for the Preschool YearsPeggy Cunningham, author of the new children's book Really Rare Rabbits (children's series) and contributor to Grandparenting Through Obstacles.Marie Wells Coutu, author of For Such a Moment (Mended Vessels Series)Which books are you representing, Dianne?I will be signing my three most recent books (assuming we get funded and can get all the books there). They are:
Grandparenting Through Obstacles: Overcoming Family Challenges to Reach Your Grandchildren for Christ. Coauthored with Renee Gray-Wilburn, this book just won "Book of the Year" in the Family / Relationships category from the Christian Small Publishers Association. Prophecies Fulfilled in the Birth of Jesus (November 2012) Prophecies Fulfilled in the Death & Resurrection of Jesus (April 2013) Finally...Please know I'm very grateful to every person who donates. And if you can't or don't want to, believe me I understand. I hate asking for money! I only am asking this time because we can't afford to do this on our own and so we need a little help.

So if you'd like to be part of getting us into the International Christian Retail Show in St. Louis, June 23 - 26, or if you just want one of the great incentives, please visit Meet Us in St. Louis 2013. But hurry, there's only a few days left. The fundraiser closes Saturday!

Thank you so very, very much.

My third book, Grandparenting Through Obstacles, Wins a CSPA "Book of theYear" Award!

Christian Small Publishers Association (CSPA) has announced the winners of their 2013 Book of the Year awards and Grandparenting Through Obstacles won in the "Family/Relationships" category!


A big hearty Thank You! to everyone who took the time to go vote. Obviously, this wouldn't have happened without you!
I offer my sincere congratulations to my co-author, Renee Gray-Wilburn, as well as to the twenty writers who contributed their stories and to Cavin Harper who wrote the foreword in the book.

Needless to say, our publisher, Pix-N-Pens Publishing, is also thrilled. This is the first Book of the Year award from Christian Small Publishers Association for the publisher as far as I know, so PNP is really excited. I also send my sincere congratulations to the publisher, Tracy Ruckman, for all she has done and all she is continuing to do to make this book successful.

(In the "continuing to do" category, we have some more really exciting news about something Tracy is up to...and we're going to need your help with that too, if I'm not coming to the well too often...but let's not cut this celebration short. I'll gather that information and put it in my next post and get it posted soon--perhaps tomorrow morning. Please don't miss it!

Oh.  You want a hint?  Okay: Going to St. Louis to promote my Pix-N-Pens books. But more about that later...)
For me, this is a special honor because this is the second year in a row one of my books has taken the "Book of the Year" in the Family / Relationships category! If you've been following this blog for long, you'll remember that my second book, Deliver Me , took this award a year ago.

Winning an award like this provides one more way to make our book known. It's hard to make a book known, but that is the only way it gets it on the radar scope of the people who need it and whom it can help.

So thank you again for all the help you gave us to win this "Book of the Year" award from Christian Small Publishers Association (CSPA). You voted. You prayed. You did it. I thank you so much.  Again.

Please VOTE for Grandparenting Through Obstacles!

Another one of my books has been nominated for "Book of the Year" at Christian Small Publishers Association! Voting is open through March 31, so please vote now! I need your vote if my book is to win.

Would you please click through right now and cast your vote for Grandparenting Through Obstacles here?  http://www.christianpublishers.net/13votes/  It's in the "Family / Relationships" category which is the second category down. The book is on the right (third row of books down) with the blue cover. This is the book I co-authored with Renee Gray-Wilburn.

If you want to check out the book further, read the reviews on Amazon or check out some pages on Amazon's "Look Inside the Book" feature.

After you vote you can snag a print or an e-copy of the book from Amazon for Kindle or BarnesandNoble.com for Nook.

You have the opportunity to vote for your favorite books in several categories. A Familiar Shore, in the fiction category, is published by the same publisher and I know Jennifer would appreciate your vote too.

It would help me a lot if you'd ask your friends to vote also. You can send them here for the link.

Thank you for voting for one of my books . . . again. As you know, winning "Book of the Year" is great publicity, lets readers know it's a fine book, and would help get the word out about Grandparenting Through Obstacles: Overcoming Family Challenges to Reach Your Grandchildren for Christ so people who need it will hear about it.

"Books of Hope" Nonfiction Contest Winner!

I'm please to announce I've won the non-fiction category in Pix-N-Pens Publishing's "Books of Hope" contest!

In 2012, Pix-N-Pens Publishing, the same company that published my book co-authored with Renee Gray-Wilburn  Grandparenting Through Obstacles , held a contest to search for manuscripts to publish. Early on, publisher Tracy Ruckman said that she had noted something disturbing in the faces of people she saw everywhere: hopelessness. She wondered what she could do. So she sponsored the contest to look for books on hope to publish in order to take hope in Jesus Christ to the hopeless.

The contest was announced in May. Pix-N-Pens and its sister publisher, Write Integrity Press, wanted entries in both fiction and nonfiction. They also wanted stand-alone books and books in series of three.

I wanted to enter the contest, but I wasn't sure what to enter. I didn't have anything that fit the "hope" theme in the works. So I did what I always try to do with my writing: I went to see what the Bible had to say. I turned in my concordance and started looking at how many times the word "hope" was used in the Bible. I found about fifty uses of the word in the New Testament, 31 in the Psalms, 18 in Job, and interestingly only 12 elsewhere in the Old Testament.

I thought I could write a brief chapter or devotional-style entry on each occurrence and so that's the idea I pitched to the contest in the 3-book series nonfiction category.

Finalists were announced in June. Turns out there were far more entries for fiction that for nonfiction books (lucky for me!). Everyone wants to write fiction! But nonfiction sells a lot more. When people need help, they reach for nonfiction.

My idea was a nonfiction finalist. The winners of the contest were announced on January 23, 2013. You can read the official announcement here: "2012 Books of Hope Nonfiction Winner" Announced. Scroll down for the winners of the fiction categories. I see some really exciting books there that I'm looking forward to reading!

My first book in the "Days of Hope" series will be 50 Days of Hope from the New Testament.

When will it release? That has yet to be determined. Right now Pix-N-Pens has me very busy with two other series I'm writing for them.

The second book in my "Prophecies Fulfilled" series, titled Prophecies Fulfilled in the Death & Resurrection of Jesus, releases next month just in time for Easter. Please watch this blog for the soon-release of the book's cover! Very exciting!

The first book in that series, Prophecies Fulfilled in the Birth of Jesus , released for Christmas 2012 and is available now. Like Grandparenting Through Obstacles , it's a great resource for individual use or group study.

I'm also contracted for a 3-book series of fiction, the "Springs Eternal" series starting with Hope's Diner which is scheduled to release later this year.

My thanks to Pix-N-Pens Publishing (PNP) and Write Integrity Press (WIP) for the opportunities to write for them and for their heart for reaching people with the hope that is in Jesus Christ.

I'm a Semifinalist in the Kairos Prize for Spiritually Uplifting Screenplays!

Wow. Remember that screenwriting thing I was doing? Went to the Act One Program a couple years ago and stuff? I'm still plugging along on that and guess what. The screenplay I wrote last year and entered in the Kairos Prize for Spiritually Uplifting Screenplays competition is a semifinalist!

My screenplay is titled Daemon. You can see my name on the list at Kairos Prize. There are 55 semifinalists this year. Last year there were 60.

Finalists will be announced at the beginning of February on the web site, so I'm guessing that will be early next week. I'm not sure how many finalists there will be. Last year there were twelve.

Winners will be awarded at the 21st Annual MOVIEGUIDE® Awards and Report to the Entertainment Industry on February 15th, 2013, in Los Angeles.

Can you believe it? My head is still spinning. Pinching myself to make sure it is real. I'm not sure. Maybe I've been sucked into some crazy movie from Hollywood. I wonder what's going to happens next...

Deliver Me book is FREE this weekend - Commemorating "Sanctity of Human Life Sunday"

Great news for lovers of the Deliver Me book! Deliver Me: Hope, Help, & Healing through True Stories of Unplanned Pregnancy is now available for Amazon's Kindle! To celebrate, and to commemorate "Sanctity of Human Life Sunday" which is Sunday January 20th, we've made Deliver Me free for Kindle users through Sunday.Don't have a Kindle? No problem! Your can turn your computer into a Kindle for FREE. It's fast, easy, and safe for your computer. Use these links:For PCs: Kindle for PCFor Macs: Kindle for MacGet your FREE e-book copy of Deliver Me now through Sunday here: Deliver Me on KindlePlease tell your friends -- anyone who would like to read Deliver Me for free. Send them to this blog post for all the details and links to everything they need to get Deliver Me for free on their Kindle reading device or Kindle on their computer.To share this with friends, you can use the Facebook and Twitter share buttons at the bottom of this post, or email a link to this post. Thank you for helping to spread the word!
Special note: We're working to get Deliver Me in Amazon's "Look Inside the Book" program. Right now the new Kindle version of Deliver Me has linked to the print version, and so if you "Look Inside the Book" on either the Kindle or the print version, you will see the Kindle version. It is all the same words -- the same great stories, information, and resources, but the Kindle version does not have all the beautiful graphics. Once the print version appears in "Look Inside the Book," you'll be able to see all that beautiful formatting -- exactly like it is in the printed book. The files we sent for the print version should catch up soon (hopefully!), but until then no matter which version you ask to look into, you will be looking inside the Kindle version.

NEWS! Dianne's Script Makes Semifinalist List at the Kairos Prize for Spriritually Uplifting Screenplays

Incredible news! I'm so very pleased to announce that my entry into the Kairos Prize for Spiritually Uplifting Screenplays has made the semifinalist list!

You can see the Semi-Finalist list for the 8th annual Kairos Prize.

Finalists will be announced at the beginning of February on the web site, so we can check back at the beginning of February for further information.

Winners will be awarded at the 21st Annual MOVIEGUIDE® Awards and Report to the Entertainment Industry on February 15th, 2013, in Los Angeles.

Wow! Wow! Wow! This is huge.

Grandparenting book wins Book of the Year!

THANK YOU! You did it. Grandparenting Through Obstacles won "Book of the Year" at The Book Club Network, and I owe it to you who voted. (Even if you didn't vote I'm grateful for your support!)
You can see the announcement, here in Book Fun Magazine on pages 66-67. To get to the announcement, click the right arrow at the top twice to flip a few pages to the Table of Contents on page 5, then look for the "Book of the Year Results are Announced," third item down on the far right side.

While you're on that page you can read about the results in the Letter from the Editing Manager on page 4. He talks about the contest about two thirds the way down the middle column.

He has some real interesting things to say which YOU INFLUENCED! He says he was surprised that they had the largest voter turn out in their history and more votes were cast for nonfiction than for fiction. That's because of YOU!! It was you who voted for our fist place nonfiction book, so it had to be you guys who did this! As a result he says they will be paying much more attention to nonfiction from now on, which is music to this nonfiction writer's ears. That helps me in the future, too. You did this and I can't thank you enough.

There's more great news on the announcement page. If you click on the "Book of the Year Results are Announced" in the Table of Contents it will take you to the first page of that article. Click the right arrow once to turn the page and you'll see our book and my picture along with my coauthor, Renee.
Just under the book's title, it says our book won "with 28.67% of the votes. An overwhelming lead!" That's more than 10% more than the second place book. Again you did this!

If you'd like to see the book, it is here on Amazon: and here on BarnesandNoble.com. It's also on Nook and Kindle.

Again, thank you so, so much for making this happen!

In Store Author Event: Mardel in Colorado Springs, Saturday December 22th -- Christmas book just in time for Christmas!

I will be at the Mardel Christian bookstore in Colorado Springs, Colorado, this Saturday, December 22th, signing my new book Prophecies Fulfilled in the Birth of Jesus .

For details about this book, please click the "New: Prophecies Fulfilled Books" tab up above.

The Mardel store in Colorado Springs is located at 5964 Barnes Road. That's just east of Powers. Turn east at the traffic light, then turn north into the shopping center. You'll see Mardel's big sign next to the Hobby Lobby.

I will be there from 10:00 - 4:00, later if we're busy. I think they're putting me in the book section which is located toward the back of the store, so when you come in look for the book area toward the back of the store and to your right.

Please stop by and see my exciting new book! Through it you can read through the Christmas story and take a look at 35 different prophecies. Then travel back in time to see who wrote the prophecy, when (including the date if possible), and in what context. Then travel forward in time to see how it was fulfilled in the birth of Jesus.

This book is not only great for your individual reading, but also makes a great study for groups or book clubs. Includes application questions with each chapter. It is easy enough for those who are new to Bible reading to learn a lot, but also has some little-known facts and in depth study to interest those who have read the Bible for years. It's a great resource with all the information. Makes a great gift.

I hope to see you there. Please come say hello and let me know you saw it on my blog! Or Twitter. Or Facebook. Or Linked In. Or just where you saw it!

Travel back in time to the prophecies of the first Christmas
and your future Christmases will never be the same.



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Please Vote for Book of the Year! -- Grandparenting Through Obstacles nominated

My book with Renee Gray-Wilburn has been nominated for "Book of the Year" at The Book Club Network!

To win we need your vote! Will you please vote right now? I don't know how long voting will be open, but I think it closes soon.

Vote here: http://www.bookfun.org/

If you haven't joined this site before, you must join to vote but it's free.

See the boxes on the right-hand side? Scroll down to the NONFICTION box, click  my book, Grandparenting Through Obstacles, then click to vote.

While you're there, the top box is for FICTION -- please vote for Jennifer Fromke's novel A Familiar Shore. (Jennifer writes for the same publisher as me so her publicity for winning Fiction Book of the Year would help me, too!)

Would you also please use the share buttons at the bottom of this post to send this information to your Twitter feed, Facebook, blog, e-mail, etc.?

Voting closes soon and to win we need all the votes and all the help we can get. THANK YOU!