What Do You Get From Winning a Book Award?

Receiving my Award from Debra Gaynor

 

The 2014  Readers’ Favorites Awards ceremony just ended in Miami, Florida. I was lucky to step on stage to receive the “Gold” medal for my memoir,

Freeways to Flip-Flops: A Family’s Year of gutsy Living on a Tropical Island

 

The ceremony was held at the Regency Hotel in conjunction with the Miami Book Fair, on November 22nd, 2014.

Apart from the typical book exposure, recognition, a medal, bragging rights, PR, networking and potential book sales,  I believe the most important thing you get, is the unexpected. It’s up to you to find out what that is for you.

 Sonia’s Summary of the Awards ceremony

 

What do you get from your Award?

Your book is displayed at the Readers’ Favorite Booth at the Miami Book Festival
PR- Readers’ Favorites promoted the event and listed all the winners online
The media was at the Awards ceremony, and randomly selected authors to interview. I tried to “push” my way in front of a journalist, but arrived too late
Why I believe it’s important to enter Book Award Contests

 

Sonia at Readers Favorite Booth at 2014 Miami Book Fair

My author friends, Susan Ellison Busch and Linda Kovic-Skow

Miami Book Fair rainy first day

Booths in rain

What do you get from networking during the awards?

Meeting other authors from around the world and making new friends.
Brainstorming about ways to promote, ideas on what to focus on, helping one another.
What’s your next book?
Unexpected epiphanies? ( I got one related to what’s going on in my life right now. One author said, “You will figure something out while you are here. Something you are not expecting.”)

 

Gisela Haussman, Linda Kovic-Skow, Sonia Marsh

Sonia, Carol Bodensteiner and Linda Kovic-Skow

I finally met author Gisela Hausmann, also a gold medal winner in the “Motivational” category, and Carol Bodensteiner, a silver medal winner. They are both “My Gutsy Story®“ Anthology contributors.

Sonia’s Conclusion (from her perspective)

All of us face the same problems as indie authors.

The # 1 question I kept hearing was, “How do I sell more books?

I have written about this topic (click link above) and know that book marketing and promotion is a full-time job. Many authors don’t have enough time as they also have day-jobs, so I believe we have to be realistic about our book sales, and what we are able to accomplish on a small budget.

Find Your Readers

One lesson I learned from my author friend, Linda Kovic-Skow,  whom I really enjoyed spending time with sight-seeing as well as networking is the following:

Sonia Marsh, Linda Kovic-Skow, Debra Gaynor and Susan Joyce

We need to find our readers, and not just focus on our writer friends, (which I believe many of us, including myself, tend to do.)

BUT HOW?

If you’re a memoir writer like Linda Kovic-Skow, and myself, then join the “We Love Memoirs Group,” on Facebook. Most of the 2,000 followers are readers, not writers.

The perfect example is Susan Jackson, a huge fan of memoirs, who made T-Shirts for all of us Memoir writers, and stayed with us, to show her support as a memoir reader.

Susan Jackson made the T-Shirts for us. She has the white one on the far right

Thank you Susan for your kindness. I love my turquoise T-Shirt.

 

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