Congratulations to Bolko Zimmer, author of Angelic Warfare: The Stones of Fire, one of three finalists for the Outskirts Press 2011 Best Book of the Year Award.

Bolko Zimmer holds a Ph.D. in Educational Human Resource Development from Texas A&M University and completed his dissertation on prison ministries. He spent 21 years in the United States Army, where he reached the rank of lieutenant colonel, and 20 years as an adjunct professor. He has taught at Webster University, Wayland Baptist University, and Union University, and has published several articles on health-care administration and faith-based programs. Dr. Zimmer has also served as president of the board of directors for the Bexar County Detention Ministries in San Antonio, Texas. Dr. Zimmer and his family live in Humboldt, Tennessee.

A 126-page dramatic retelling of the fall of man, Angelic Warfare: The Stones of Fire is a captivating account of the ultimate confrontation between good and evil. In this vividly imagined work, author Bolko Zimmer creates a fully realized universe populated by seraphim, cherubim, and countless angels—all with their own agendas and allegiances.

At the center of the conflict is the cherub prince, Lucifer. It’s the dawn of time, and Lucifer is filled with vanity. Before long, he rebels against the Supreme Spirit, who rules over all. Lucifer then convinces a third of the angels to follow him and they began an endless reign of evil. Among their heinous crimes: enticing mankind to commit every imaginable sin. The actions of these fallen angels also give rise to giants, who terrorize the humans, and monstrous beasts, which destroy everything in their path. Hope comes in the form of an archangel and mighty prince named Michael. He and his angels enter this world of growing wickedness to watch over and protect the virtuous people. But the angels soon confront legions of demons, valiantly resisting them until something horrifying occurs that changes heaven and earth forever…

Blending a biblically based foundation with extraordinary dramatic insights, Angelic Warfare: The Stones of Fire was published in April 2011 and is required reading for Christians, Bible scholars, and anyone who loves the greatest story ever told.

• Buy the paperback from Amazon for $10.95
• Buy the paperback from Outskirts Press for $9.86
• Download the e-book from Outskirts Press for $5.00
• Download the Amazon Kindle edition for $6.95

Every year, Outskirts Press recognizes the best book they publish with their annual Outskirts Press Best Book of the Year award, which must not only win an EVVY Award from the Colorado Independent Publishers Association but must also be recognized as the best book among three finalists in a public opinion poll. As one of three finalists, Bolko Zimmer and his book Angelic Warfare will be competing head-to-head-to-head with the other two finalists in a public poll on this blog starting on Friday. Stay tuned for information on the remaining finalist announced tomorrow and then come back on Friday to vote for the book you believe to be the best among the three. The author of the winner will receive a $1,500 credit to his or her Publishing Center, courtesy of Outskirts Press, and an exclusive 2011 Best Book of the Year award seal to apply to the cover of the book.

Are you ready to publish your own award-winning book and perhaps find yourself in the running for next year’s Best Book of the Year award?
Get started today.

Susan Mercer is a math curriculum specialist in Santa Ana, California, and has spent the last eighteen years teaching, presenting, writing and developing math resources specifically to address the needs of English Language Learners, special education and low math skill students in grades five through eight. She has presented at national, state and regional math conferences and has conducted numerous professional developmen seminars for elementary and intermediate teachers.

Born and raised in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Mercer received her B.S. from the University of Buenos Aires and then moved to California to gain her Masters in Education and teaching credentials from Chapman University. She has been an author with Outskirts Press since October 2007 and published her first book, Pathway to Pre-Algebra Proficiency: 30 Puzzles and Mini-Lessons Designed with the Preteen in Mind in January of 2008. It went on to win a 2009 EVVY Award in the Workbooks category and has received nothing but accolades and five star Amazon reviews and has been cited as a work “ready to motivate the most reluctant learner” and for “keeping students engaged in a fun way.”

Susan followed up the success of her first book with Pathway to Math Proficiency, one of 2011′s finalists for Outskirts Press Best Book of the Year. It was published in March 2011 and also won an EVVY Award just a couple of weeks ago. Pathway to Math Proficiency is a 101 page workbook that helps students master the relationships between the part and the whole with ease. In Pathway to Math Proficiency: Mastering Equivalent Fractions, Decimals and Percents…with Ease veteran educator and successful textbook author Susan Mercer has organized a graduated sequence of visual images that help students make the needed connection between fractions, decimals and percents while creating the mental image of the part and the whole each represents.

As students complete these captivating exercises, comprehension of what otherwise have been troublesome equivalency concepts now occurs easily and is immediately reinforced. Whether used as a classroom or home schooling resource, Pathway to Math Proficiency: Mastering Equivalent Fractions, Decimals and Percents…with Ease allows students to connect the visual and verbal representation of parts to the whole with forty ready-to-use, printable activities and over fourteen hundred math problems that incrementally build a student’s skills in equivalencies. All students in grades four through eight will find Mercer’s activities engaging, but English Language Learners and Special Education Students, in particular,
will be rewarded by the visual aides to learning and the gradient sequence of the exercises.

• Buy the paperback from Amazon for $14.95
• Buy the paperback from Outskirts Press for $13.46
• Download the e-book from Outskirts Press for $6.00

Every year, Outskirts Press recognizes the best book they publish with their annual Outskirts Press Best Book of the Year award, which must not only win an EVVY Award from the Colorado Independent Publishers Association but must be recognized as the best book among three finalists in a public opinion poll. As one of three finalists, Susan Mercer and her book Pathway to Math Proficiency will be competing head-to-head-to-head with the other finalists in a public poll on this blog starting on Friday. Stay tuned for information for the other two finalists announced tomorrow and the day after and then come back on Friday to vote for the book you believe to be the best among the three. The author of the winner will receive a $1,500 credit to his or her Publishing Center, courtesy of Outskirts Press, and an exclusive 2011 Best Book of the Year award seal to apply to the cover of the book.

Are you ready to publish your own award-winning book and
perhaps find yourself in the running for next year’s Best Book of the Year award? Get started today.

CEO Brent Sampson and COO Jeanine Sampson display 6 of the 15 EVVY Awards won by Outskirts Press authors at the 18th Annual CIPA EVVY Awards.

Winning an EVVY Award is a prerequisite to being named the Outskirts Press 2011 Best Book of the Year award-winner and walking away with the $1,500 Grand Prize. The Outskirts Press 2011 Best Book of the Year award recognizes the best book published by Outskirts Press in 2011 as decided by you, our social community.

Stay tuned next week for the announcement of the three finalists from among our EVVY winners below. Public voting for the winner of the 2011 Outskirts Press Best Book of the Year Award begins on this blog on Friday, June 1.

In the meantime, congratulations to all our winners!

1st Place

Autobiography/Memoirs

2nd Place

Fiction

Juvenile/Young Adult

Workbooks

Religion

Autobiography/Memoirs

Outskirts Press author Robert B. Wiley, Lt. Col., USAF, Ret. accepts his 2nd Place EVVY Award for “Struggles, Service, and Smiles” at the Colorado Independent Publishers Association EVVY Awards Ceremony.

3rd Place

 Juvenile/Young Adult

Fiction

Autobiography/Memoirs

Outskirts Press author Vera Carolyn Snyder accepts her 3rd Place EVVY Award for “Surviving the Simple Life” at the Colorado Independent Publishers Association EVVY Awards Ceremony.

Merit Award

Parenting/Family

Fiction

Fiction

Fiction

Juvenile/Young Adult

Inspirational/Spiritual

Are you the next award-winning author from Outskirts Press. Start publishing today…

Since 1996, publishers, readers, booksellers, libraries, organizations, and poets around the U.S. have come together to celebrate poetry and its vital place in American culture. Thousands of businesses and non-profit organizations participate through readings, festivals, book displays, workshops, and other events.

If you are a published poet, April is a good month to pursue active marketing tactics to take advantage. And if you’re not yet a published poet, our April giveaway is a good reason to “Like” Outskirts Press on Facebook!

Every Wednesday afternoon, a “Fan of the Week” is randomly selected from among all of our active Facebook friends at http://facebook.com/OutskirtsPress and publicly recognized on our wall and on a specific “Fan of the Week” page, accessible through our Apps menu at the top of the new Facebook Timeline format (more on that at a later date!).

Each Fan of the Week is randomly selected based upon participation on our page, (those who post comments, posts, or likes).   Since a computer is making the random selection, statistically speaking you have a greater chance becoming a Fan of the Week if you participate more frequently on the Outskirts Press Facebook page.

And throughout April, every Fan of the Week that is chosen on Wednesday will receive a FREE Poetry Publishing Kit, which is available only through Outskirts Press.  See all the details of this super convenient, super easy, super affordable way to create a custom interior for your poetry by clicking here.

And if you don’t win, or don’t plan on participating on Facebook in order to be in the running for “Fan of the Week” you can still get your hands on this incredible Poetry Publishing Kit by clicking the big green button.

This brand new, exclusive offering from Outskirts Press is now available for just $99.  Just imagine… 100 MB of instant publishing help for poets seeking a fast, easy way to publish beautiful volumes of black/white poetry.

It’s just one of the ways we’re celebrating National Poetry Month, readers of poetry, and poets worldwide. Keep on rhyming, er… writing.

“We hope Jerry will have many hours of reading pleasure from the new Kindle e-Reader,” said Outskirts Press CEO Brent Sampson.  “Our authors and our fans all love the written word, and it’s our pleasure to present Jerry with this Christmas gift and to thank all of our enthusiastic fans for “liking” us on Facebook.  Happy holidays to all!”

The new Amazon Kindle e-Reader is a high tech treasure for any 21^st century reader.  Millions of books, newspapers, magazines, games and documents can be downloaded with this handy device, and one has access, as well, to the archives of the many libraries that now lend out their volumes to be read on e-Readers.  Amazon even has its own lending library now, where readers have access to thousands of books, including more than a hundred current and former New York Times bestsellers.  Those readers who might sometimes be forgetful will incur no past due fees from the Amazon library either.

For lovers of the world’s greatest literature, there are free downloads of pre-1923 out-of-copyright classics such as Pride and Prejudice and The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.  The Open Library, Project Gutenberg and ManyBooks.net offer more than a million other titles ready for free download to a Kindle e-Reader, as well.

The new Kindle is lighter and more compact than ever.  It weighs just six ounces and fits handily in any pocket or small purse.  It holds fourteen hundred books at a time – one’s own personal library – and the new E Ink screen reads as easily as real paper.  There is no glare, and one can read as clearly outside under a bright sun as in the muted light of one’s own living room.

A single charge of the batteries keeps readers turning pages for up to a month – made all the easier with Kindle’s faster new page turner function — and there is always free WI FI access at AT&T hotspots across the country.  One can also connect to WI FI hotspots at home or on the road.  One can also e-mail personal documents or PDF’s direct to a Kindle for viewing and annotation while away from one’s pc.

For all authors wishing their books were available on the Amazon Kindle, Outskirts Press also offers an Amazon Kindle edition service, available conveniently at this link, just in time to start 2012 off right: http://outskirtspress.com/p/kindle.

And here’s some great news even if you didn’t win. Since we got so close to the 5,000 fans needed to “unlock” the free Barnes & Noble NOOK drawing, we are going to keep the promotion going into the New Year. Once we reach 5,000 “likes” on our Outskirts Press Facebook page, we will hold the drawing for your chance to win a free Barnes & Noble NOOK. So stay connected, keep writing, keeping publishing, and keep promoting your book with the help of Outskirts Press!

In fact, 2012 is the best year ever to stay connected with Outskirts Press and stay friends with us on Facebook. In January we will announce your opportunity to get published for free in our next Facebook Anthology, Fandemonium Volume 2 — exclusively for our Facebook friends.

And in February, just in time for Valentine’s Day, comes our exciting “Share the Love” event and your chance to win a free Apple iPad 2! Stayed tuned for the details. You’re going to love it.

Speaking of Kindles, Nooks, and iPads, did you know Outskirts Press makes it easier than ever to publish your book on these 3 leading e-book devices? And it doesn’t matter where (or if) you have published. We take care of all the conversions, submissions, and details – and you keep 100% of the profits. It’s that simple!  Click on the links below for more details or to order now:

• Amazon Kindle Edition
• Barnes & Noble Nook Edition
• iPad/iPhone Premium Edition with iBooks Distribution

The twelve days of Christmas expand this year to twenty-five in Outskirts Press’ 25 Days of Christmas contest that awards a Kindle, a Nook or an iPad2 in a drawing from the publisher’s Facebook fans who “Like” them from December 1st to the 25th.

The more fans that “Like” Outskirts Press’ Facebook page at http://facebook.com/outskirtspress, the better the self-publisher’s giveaway will be.

• If there are 5,000 fans or less by Christmas day, Outskirts Press will have one random drawing from among all its fans to see who wins a free Amazon Kindle.
• If there are between 5,001 and 10,000 fans, there will be two random drawings; one for a free Amazon Kindle and one for a free Barnes & Noble Nook.
• If over 10,000 fans have “Liked” Outskirts Press, there will be three random drawings: one for a free Amazon Kindle; one for a free Barnes & Noble Nook; and one for a free iPad2.

“Tis better to give than to receive,” said Outskirts Press Vice President Kelly Schuknecht.  “This is a way of saying Happy Holidays to our authors and fans from all of us here at Outskirts Press.”

Any of the three e-readers that are available to be drawn on Christmas Day will make a perfect gift for a lover of the written word.

The new Amazon Kindle is a lighter, smaller and faster version of its renowned earlier models.  It weighs only six ounces, and while it has the same six inch screen, its body is eighteen percent smaller and fits easily into a pocket.  It has a built in Wi-Fi®, has a high contrast E Ink® display that allows reading for extended periods without eyestrain, and its battery holds a charge for up to one month.

The new Barnes & Noble Nook allows readers to touch, open a book, make the type bigger, look up words, organize one’s library, lend a book or shop for new titles.  It has a breakthrough E Ink® display with a Best-Text™ function that reads just like a paper, even in the bright sun.  More than two and a half million books are available instantly with the built in Wi-Fi® and, as with the Amazon Kindle, one can borrow books from one’s public library, as well.

The Apple iPad2 is the crème de la crème of Outskirts Press 25 Days of Christmas e-reader gifts this year.  It is only a third of an inch deep, weighs as little as one and a third pounds and allows users to surf the web, check e-mail, watch movies and take pictures.  There are, in fact, two cameras on the device: one on the front that shows the user’s face as he or she talks via the device, another on the back that can be used to pass on a look at one’s surroundings as one talks.

And, yes, the iPad2 can also be used to download and read books, periodicals and other texts — just like the Kindle and the Nook.

Authors are being encouraged to click the “Like” button themselves for the Outskirts Press Facebook page and then to tell all their writer friends to do the same in order to increase their chances of winning.

The drawing(s) will take place and the winner(s) will be notified on Christmas Day, December 25^th.

Go ahead. Like us. http://www.facebook.com/OutskirtsPress

‘Tis better to give than to receive.

Here at Outskirts Press, we’re kicking that phrase up a notch for the holiday season. 2011 was an exciting year for Outskirts Press and all our authors (all those awards they’ve won, for example). We want to share this positive energy with all of our Facebook fans, too! So we are putting all of you in control of exactly what we give away. You read that right – you have control over what type of e-book readers we give away–and how many– during our Facebook holiday promotion. It’s kind of like how all our authors keep 100% control over their books.

Introducing the 25 Days of Christmas for our Facebook Fans.  From now until December 25, the more “likes” we get on our Facebook Page, the better the giveaway and the more chances you get to win. Here’s how:

• If we have 5000 fans or less on Christmas Day, we will have one random drawing from among all our fans to see who wins a free Amazon Kindle.
• If we have 5001 – 10000 fans, we will have two random drawings, one for a free Amazon Kindle and one for a free Barnes & Noble NOOK.
• If we have over 10,000 fans, we will have three random drawings (for an Amazon Kindle, a Barnes & Noble NOOK, and a free Apple iPad).

All you have to do is visit our Facebook page and click the “Like” button. Then tell all of your writing friends. The more authors who enter, the more prizes we give away and the better your chances to win one. 

That’s it! Easy!  And it’s worth sticking around. 2012 will be a great year for our Facebook fans, beginning with the invitation to submit materials for our second annual Fandemonium Facebook Anthology, Volume II, which will be announced on our Facebook page early next year.

The drawings will take place, and the winner(s) will be notified, on Christmas Day, December 25. This is just our way of saying Happy Holidays from all of us at Outskirts Press, where you keep 100% of your rights, 100% of your profits, and 100% of the control over your book.

Need help self-publishing your book? Let’s talk…

Now it is time to vote in the public poll below.  Votes will be accepted through the end of April. You can only vote once, but you can get everyone you know to vote once, also. Notify your friends on Facebook; tweet your Twitter followers. Post a link to the vote on your blog, etc.

The winner will be identified on May 1st based upon the total number of votes received in this public poll. The winner will be awarded the Outskirts Press Best Book of the Year award, which includes a $1,500 prize and an exclusive award graphic permanently added to his/her publication.

To refresh your memory, here are the Finalists, one last time, along with links to more information about each one:

Finalist #1: The Key To Job Success In Any Career: Developing Six Competencies That Close America’s Global Skills Gap, by Frank B. Leibold, Ph.D. of Longs, South Carolina

 Visit Frank’s author webpage by clicking here to:

• watch a video book teaser
• listen to an audio excerpt recorded by the author
• read more blurbs and quotes
• learn more about the book
• read an excerpt
• purchase the e-book instantly

Visit Frank’s book on Amazon by clicking here to:

• purchase the paperback
• write a review

Finalist #2: Psych Consults: A Concise Guide to Common Psychiatric Conditions, by Robert J. Mignone, M.D., F.A.P.A. of Sarasota, Florida

Visit Robert’s author webpage by clicking here to:

• watch a video book teaser
• learn more about the book

Visit Robert’s book on Amazon by clicking here to:

• purchase the hardback
• read the review
• write a review

Finalist #3: The Beads of Lapis Lazuli: A Greek Mystery, by Doris Kenney Marcotte of Cincinnati, Ohio

Visit Doris’ author webpage by clicking here to:

• watch a video book teaser
• learn more about the book
• read and excerpt
• purchase the e-book instantly

Visit Doris’ book on Amazon by clicking here to:

• purchase the paperback
• read the reviews
• write a review
• purchase the Amazon Kindle edition

It’s time to vote!