Archive for March, 2009
Everything you want to know about the EVVY Book Awards for Self Publishing Authors
Here is the WHO, WHAT, WHERE, WHEN, WHY, and HOW about the EVVY Book Awards…
WHO:
Who sponsors the EVVY Awards? The EVVY Awards are named in honor of the first president of the Colorado Independent Publishers Association; and CIPA continues the tradition of recognizing excellence in self-published books with their annual EVVY Book Awards.
WHAT:
What are the EVVY Awards? The EVVY Awards recognize excellence in self-published books. Each year, every Diamond and Pearl book published by Outskirts Press is considered for EVVY Award eligibility. Less than 5% of the books we publish become finalists for official Outskirts Press nomination.
WHERE:
Where are the EVVY Awards held? The EVVY Awards Banquet and Awards Ceremony are held in Denver, Colorado in March of each year.
WHEN:
When are books nominated? Books are nominated for submission to the EVVY Awards in the fall of the year of their copyright. For example, books with a copyright date of 2009 are considered for official Outskirts Press nomination in the fall of 2009.
WHY:
Why should you be interested in winning an EVVY Award? Winning an award is one of the most recognized and effective methods of differentiating your book from the masses. Along with the sense of pride and accomplishment that comes from winning the award, Outskirts Press Officially Nominated EVVY Award-winning authors receive a variety of marketing and promotional materials, opportunities, and prizes. Depending upon the placing of your book among the winners, you may receive some or all of what is listed below:
Marketing materials like bookmarks and placards (all winners)- 50 cover stickers (1st, 2nd, 3rd place winners)
- A framed award featuring the cover of your book (1st, 2nd, 3rd place winners)
- Bonus blog and newsletter exposure (all winners)
- An invitation to be featured in national advertising (selected nominees)

Framed awards for the 6 First Place Outskirts Press Books
HOW:
Add comment March 31, 2009
Self Publishing Book Award Winners
Congratulations to all the 2009 EVVY Award winning books published by Outskirts Press. Scroll down to see all this year’s winners, and visit our blog tomorrow to see what they’ve won.
FIRST PLACE
Join us all this week for more information about the EVVY Awards, the award-winners, photos from the event, our award-winning publishing process, and the marketing steps award-winning books can take to further differentiate themselves in the marketplace.
Not yet an award-winning published author? Click the button below to get started.
Add comment March 30, 2009
Official Outskirts Press EVVY Nominees
Every fall, Outskirts Press officially nominates the top 5% of its published titles for the Annual EVVY Book Awards. This year’s black-tie banquet and awards ceremony takes place March 28th in Denver, Colorado, hosted by the Denver-area’s #1-rated morning talk show co-host, Dom Testa of the “Dom & Jane Show.”
Stay tuned on Monday to see the Outskirts Press award-winners posted right here, from among the official nominees below. Congratulations to all our current (and past) EVVY nominated books. Just being nominated is a great honor.
EVVY Nominations (and particularly wins) are very competitive.
| Title | Author |
| Fixer | Ed Brodow |
| Piccolo, the Gray Robe | Robin M. Ambrozic |
| An Unlikely Place for Love | Ruth Ann Nordin |
| Winning Strategies to Ace the Job Interview | Barbara Hanks |
| Far Above Rubies | Laurenda Salandy |
| Glorified Chicken Coops | Tanya I. Cole |
| What To Do When You Become The Boss | Bob Selden |
| Title | Author |
| Stella Ducktropolis | Charlotte Barnes |
| Arlington’s Dream | Diane Marie McCarthy |
| Who’s There? | Sandra Jones Cropsey |
| Walking Through Walls | Two Lenz |
| Certain Mercies | Daril Bentley |
| Title | Author |
| The Wizard’s Legacy | Ashley Simmons |
| A Guide For Tortured Souls | Jeanne du Soleil |
| Memoirs of a Cold War Colonel | William MacArthur |
| Title | Author |
| Who’s Steering | George A. Eddy |
| Azulejo | Daphne A Oberon |
| Heal Depression Yourself! | Randy G. Sorter, MA, LPC, NCC |
| EverWing | MJ Grothoff |
| One Night Stand | Betty Shafer |
| Haints | Nash Black |
| The Land of Carina | Carol Garton |
| Hanover Easy | Debra P. Whitehead |
| Title | Author |
| Stay 40 | Richard Lippman |
| Earth School 101 | Alan Arcieri |
| Lioness of the Clan | Anthony Isoh |
| Title | Author |
| The Little Woman Handbook | Cheryl Hattrup |
| Queen Vernita’s Visitors | Dawn Menge |
| What Can We Do Next? | Toula Magi |
| Gene the Pumpkin Man | Carol Rhodes |
| Pathway to Pre-Algebra Proficiency | Susan Mercer |
| Christine Laffer: Tapestry and Transformation | Carole Greene |
| Adventures in Publishing | Brent Sampson |
| Title | Author |
| Through The Knot Hole | Winston S. Nurse |
| The Crow’s Nest: Flight Of Phantoms | Karen Lynn S. |
| Living and Practicing by Design | Dr. John Hayes, Jr. |
| The Shady Nook Pageant | J. L. Durnin |
| Family Secrets | R. A. Siracusa |
| The PTA | Carol Olson & Cherie Rodgers |
| Title | Author |
| My Time on the Clock | Wm. Joseph McFarland |
| Utopia Texas | Betty Byrd |
| The Coronado Brief | Justin Dwinnell |
| Red Sky Morning | Andrew J Rafkin |
| Whitie’s Gold | H. D. Williams |
| Fatal Waters | Iris Moss |
| Title | Author |
| Surviving Love in War | M.A. Cary |
| Clone’D’ | Bert Hunnersen |
| Peaceful Endings | Michael K. Tucker |
| His Name Was Donn | Evelyn Sweet-Hurd |
| The Next Falling Empire | Marc Boyajian |
| A Pawn of Fate | Rita Keeley Brown |
| Become Unstoppable | Lee Witt |
| A Worthy Legacy | Tomi Akinyanmi |
| Little Stories | Jeff Roberts |
| Title | Author |
| The Lemurian | Darin Williams |
| Betrayal | Norman Chance |
| Outside the Lavendar Closet | Martha A. Taylor |
| Female Empowerment – A Personal Journey | Kim Goff |
Yes, every publisher wants their books to win awards, but at Outskirts Press, not only do our authors win, but so do our production team members. Outskirts Press book designers, cover designers, and author representatives of EVVY Award-winning books receive cash bonuses if the book they worked on wins an award. In other words, our production team is motivated to make every single book we publish an Award-winning book.
Is it time to publish your own award-winning book? Start today…
Add comment March 27, 2009
6 Steps to Becoming an Expert with a Self Published Book
Become an expert in your field and book sales will follow. It’s true that promoting a book requires a great amount of resolve, but it is also true that working smarter, rather than harder, can help reap those rewards. By positioning yourself as an expert in the genre in which you write, you can open new doors for networking, doors that often remain shut without that expertise status.
1. Write a book
You’ve done this already, right? If you haven’t, consider it. You may find yourself closer to a finished manuscript than you realize. Writing a publishable book from your knowledge or experience is often a matter of simply putting your expertise on paper.
2. Publish your book
A published book becomes a calling card to line-up speaking engagements, freelance writing gigs, and other opportunities. Don’t become a victim of “Catch-22 Paralysis” where you can’t promote because no one knows about you, but no one knows about you since you can’t promote. Instead, become a “Catch-all front runner” where you’re an expert because you have published a book, and your published book proves your expertise.
3. Promote your expertise
Two good places to begin are AOL and ABOUT.COM. Both have category-specific forums in which you can participate. By mentioning that you are the “author of such-and-such” within the scope of your communication, you begin to label yourself as an expert. Other forums about just about every topic under the sun can be found in Yahoo Groups and Google Groups.
Web-logs, or “blogs” are also a cost effective, efficient way to promote your expertise. Blogs utilize .xml and RSS feeds to provide dynamic, up-to-the minute publication across a variety of searchable platforms. The integration between blogs and contextual search engines becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy toward recognition. If you write about something, people searching for the topic will invariably find you, and that makes you an expert!
4. Overcome the fiction hurdle
Being recognized as an expert in a technical or non-fiction category is admittedly easier than the largely subjective category of a “fiction expert.” Even so, if you have written a work of fiction, becoming a recognized expert in your genre is not only possible, but necessary. Just look at Clancy, Rowling, and Robbins.
5. Explore the possibilities
Whether you’ve penned a techno-thriller, children’s fantasy, or romance, there is a forum in which to voice your expertise. The Internet is full of chat rooms, writing groups, genre-sites, and more. They’re all thirsty for content from published writers. You just have to know where to look. Conducting a Google search is a good place to start.
6. Join, participate, schmooze
Seek out conferences, associations, and other experts to help you. At Outskirts Press, we are members of IBPA, SPAN, CIPA, FWA, SWWA, and the BBB, just to name a few. This leads to professional relationships with experts, mentors, editors, writers, and many other professionals who can offer help or support.
Remember, keep on writing, keep on reading, and keep on promoting your published book. Becoming a published author may feel like a once-in-a-lifetime experience when it first happens, but like everything else in life, success requires tenacity and passion.
Not yet a successfully published, author?
This article was reprinted with permission from Brent Sampson, president/CEO of Outskirts Press.
Add comment March 25, 2009
5 Steps to Self Publishing Success
How I Earned $30,000 a Month through POD Publishing
by Gang Chen
The economy was not so bad when I started thinking about self publishing my first book, Planting Design Illustrated. I had gotten some interest from traditional publishers but they wanted to make quite a lot of changes and add a co-author. These were changes that would have made me dislike my own book! So, I turned to self publishing. At the time, making a lot of money was not at the top of my priorities. I simply wanted to publish my own book in my own way.
Things change. Sure, I still want to have all the control and keep all my rights, but the royalty checks have a way of becoming more important, especially with the economic climate that we’re in. I self published my second book, LEED AP Exam Guide with Outskirts Press in September of 2008. LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) is the most important trend in development and is currently revolutionizing the construction industry.
My book had the benefit of being published at the right time, at the right price. In one month (January 2009), I earned over $30,000 in royalties ($31,207.68, to be precise). I earned even more in February (or so Outskirts Press tells me; the exact sales figures haven’t been posted yet).
These are the steps I followed:
1. WRITE A VALUABLE BOOK
This step is easily overlooked, but it is Number One on this list for a reason. Your book must provide some sort of value or benefit for the reader. In my case, my books are both non-fiction, and fairly niche. I earn the lion’s share of my royalties from my LEED AP Exam Guide, which provides a mock exam, study guides, and sample questions for the LEED AP Exam, required to obtain one’s title of “LEED AP (Accredited Professional).” Did I say it was niche? It is – and for people seeking the information contained in my book, it is also invaluable.
I don’t think I’m saying anything revolutionary when I say that publishing non-fiction is an easier proposition on the self publishing front than fiction. But even fiction books are valuable, if they provide the type of “escape” your reader is seeking. Whether you write non-fiction, fiction, poetry, or something else entirely, the book must deliver on its promise. You might do everything else on this list, and you might even find some short-lived success, but ultimately, the success of your book comes down to the strength of your book and the marketing efforts you put forth.
2. IDENTIFY YOUR TARGET AUDIENCE
Who is your reader? If your answer is “everybody” you need to reevaluate your goals and recalibrate your expectations. Even the bestselling book of all time appeals to less than 1/5 of the planet’s population. You know the book? The Bible. No book is meant for everybody. In fact, perhaps counter-intuitively, the smaller your audience, the more success you will find.
Look at my books: Planting Design Illustrated and LEED AP Exam Guide. That small, target audience is precisely the reason my books are well-known in the proper circles. Do I care that someone who reads Harry Potter has never heard of me? No. Is it incredibly important to me that students and professionals in the field of green building design and construction have heard of me? Yes.
Who do you think it is easier to find and market to—a person who reads Harry Potter, or a student/professional in the field of green building design and construction? Exactly. The smaller your pond, the bigger your fish. Or something like that.
3. RECOGNIZE THE TYPE OF BOOK YOU ARE PUBLISHING
You should be realistic about the type of book you are writing, and the type of publishing you are doing. If you are self publishing your book (regardless of whether you are doing it yourself or through the self-publishing services of a POD company like I did), don’t try to force your book to be something that it’s not. Your book is not a mass market paperback like those you find in a grocery store. Nor is it the latest hardback, discounted 80%, like those you find at Costco. As a self publishing author, both of those scenarios are too risky, and to be frank, you probably don’t possess the means to take on that kind of risk. So why try? Self publishing authors publish trade paperback and hardback books that can be available regionally (perhaps), locally (probably), and online (definitely).
4. PRICE YOUR BOOK APPROPRIATELY
No, this does not mean you should simply make your book as affordable as possible. It means you should do market research to determine the prices of similar books in your category. Look on Amazon.com for similar books (you’ll need to be aware of these books anyway, when it comes to marketing yours). Examine their page count and price point. Make an honest assessment of your book in relation to the other books in your category. Does your content justify a higher price? Does your page count suggest a lower price?
Your method of publishing should be considered but should not play a definitive role in the price of your book – the marketplace should. It doesn’t matter where you published your book if no one is buying it (just like it doesn’t matter where you published your book if many people are buying it!). Just be sure you are comparing apples to apples (see #3 above).
5. PUBLISH YOUR BOOK WISELY
My main consideration when choosing my publisher was not how much my royalties were going to be. That only became important to me after the book was published. But they say hindsight is 20-20, so I’m going to share with you one of the main reasons my royalties are so high. The publisher I chose, Outskirts Press, pays me 100% of the profits of the book and lets me set my own pricing. iUniverse pays 20% of the profit. Xlibris pays 10% of the retail price. But by paying 100% of the profit, Outskirts Press allowed me to set the retail price to whatever I wanted, and now I earn the entire benefit of increasing my price.
Here’s another way to look at it: If I had published my same exact book with iUniverse at the same exact retail price, instead of earning $31,207.68 in January, I would have earned approximately $5,300. If I had published my same book with Xlibris, I would have earned approximately
$4,600. Yes, without knowing any better, I would have still considered myself a successfully self-published author, but probably not enough to write this article.
Self publishing is working for me. My royalties are increasing every month and I’m working on my third book, which I will also publish with Outskirts Press. If hindsight is indeed 20-20, I can only imagine what my royalties will be for book #3! Wish me luck, and I do the same for you.
About the Author
Gang Chen is a LEED AP and a member of the American Institute of Architects (AIA). He is the internationally acclaimed author of LEED AP Exam Guide and Planting Design Illustrated. Gang Chen holds a Masters Degree from the School of Architecture, University of Southern California (USC), Los Angeles, and a Bachelors Degree from the Department of Architecture, South China University of Technology.
He has over 20 years of professional experience. Many of the projects he was in charge of, or participated in, have been published extensively in Architecture, Architectural Record, The Los Angeles Times and The Orange County Register, etc. He has worked on a variety of unusual projects, including well-known large-scale healthcare and hospitality projects with over one billion dollars in construction costs, award-winning school design, highly-acclaimed urban design and streetscape projects, multi-family housing and high-end custom homes, and regional and neighborhood shopping centers. Visit http://outskirtspress.com/GangChen for more information.
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Add comment March 24, 2009

















