Some authors claim it’s a waste of money to enter book contests, but I don’t agree with them.

Whether you like it or not, readers look up to authors who have been nominated for Awards, and I think it’s important to try as many ways as possible to become “visible” in this competitive ocean of indie authors.

Why it’s important to enter Book Award Contests

To stand out from the competition
To get recognition
To have a Press Release sent out to the media
To land an interview or a newspaper article
To get further media attention while attending the Awards Ceremony
To get your photo taken and use it for promotion
To add it to your Amazon Author Page
To try and get a photo taken standing next to a celebrity at the Awards Ceremony
The organization also promotes the winners (SEE BELOW)

My goal is to help you enter a few contests and I am very proud to announce that my memoir, Freeways to Flip-Flops: A Family’s Year of Gutsy Living on a Tropical Island received the Gold Medal at the Readers’ Favorite Awards. I look forward to attending the Awards Ceremony at the Regency Hotel, Miami, Florida, on November 22nd, 2014. Photos will of course be posted on my site.

READERS FAVORITE AWARD-2014 page-001 — Click on photo to see the 5-Star Review

Readers’ Favorites state the following:

“We have posted your review on Barnes & Noble and Google Books. Your book must be currently listed on these sites for us to post your review there.

We have also posted your review on our Facebook, Twitter,Google Plus and Pinterest pages. You will notice we created a special sentence with #hashtags for each of your social posts to help them get noticed. You may want to include the hashtag we created for your book title in future social posts to link them to your review and help build a trend for your book.

Amazon does not allow professional review companies to post in their Customer Reviews section. Instead, they have created an Editorial Reviews section where they want you to post excerpts from your professional reviews, which you can do through your Amazon Author Central Account.”

So why not enter the Readers’ Favorites, 2015 Award Contest. You have 195 days left.

Click here to enter

I know many of you have read my memoir, and I am getting ready to write another one. I have applied to join the PEACE CORPS and shall keep you posted when I get my interview and find out which country they are sending me to for 27-months of my life.

Here are the list of Awards I’ve received to help you contact these organizations and submit your own books to them. BEST OF LUCK to you. Keep being GUTSY!

(CLICK HERE FOR TO SEE MY AWARDS LIST

Next Thursday, September 25th, COME BACK TO READ ABOUT THE BIG ANNOUNCEMENT ABOUT “MY GUTSY STORY” BOOK LAUNCH PARTY ON NOVEMBER 1st, 2014.