For the entire month of May, authors who have published with Outskirts Press can get FREE SHIPPING on book orders of 50 or more with UPS Ground shipping within the continental United States. If you’ve been wanting to restock books for events or save more money by ordering in bulk for your direct sales efforts, now is the time to take advantage of our most popular promotion for published authors.

Here’s how it works: 

1. Login to your Publishing Center and place an order for 50 or more copies of your book(s) in a single format before May 31st.

2. Select normal ground shipping with a delivery address in the continental United States.

No promotion code is necessary. You will see the free shipping reflected during your order. Easy, right? Click here to place your order. When you pair the shipping savings with the money you’ll save by placing a bulk order, you have an opportunity to save even more.

Why the Wind Loves Children

by Fred Schlissel

(5 Stars – 6 Customer Reviews)

Price: $22.95

Fred Schlissel’s “Why the Wind Loves Children.” This book is about loving children. The wind loves children because it was the joy, happiness and laughter of the children that gave the wind the energy to become a force.

Please note that product prices and availability are subject to change. Prices and availability were accurate at the time of this posting; however, they may differ from those you see when you visit Amazon.com.© Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates.All rights reserved. Amazon, Amazon.com, the Amazon.com logo, and 1-Click are registered trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates. Amazon.com, 410 Terry Avenue N., Seattle, WA 98109-5210.

The Vase with the Many Coloured Marbles

by Jacob Singer

(4 Stars – 6 Customer Reviews)

Price: $21.95

Jacob Singer’s “The Vase with the Many Coloured Marbles.” Emmy was born Emily Kleintjies into the Coloured community of South Africa, which was discriminated against by the racial apartheid laws that became stricter with the election of Hendrik Verwoerd as Prime Minister. Emily, as a young Coloured girl, looked more like a WHITE (European) than a Coloured. Growing up, she found that she could ignore the ‘WHITES ONLY’ signs on benches, restaurants and beaches around Cape Town, without anyone challenging her.

Please note that product prices and availability are subject to change. Prices and availability were accurate at the time of this posting; however, they may differ from those you see when you visit Amazon.com.© Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates.All rights reserved. Amazon, Amazon.com, the Amazon.com logo, and 1-Click are registered trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates. Amazon.com, 410 Terry Avenue N., Seattle, WA 98109-5210.

The beautifully animated, 98-second video follows the story of an author who runs into frustrating roadblocks in his efforts to publish his book before ultimately finding  self-publishing success with Outskirts Press.

While the character of John in the video is fictional, the story illustrated in the video is based on actual feedback from authors who’ve had bad experiences elsewhere. There are horror stories about over-paying for almost no support and poor quality. And when all is said and done, they received only a small percentage of their royalties.

Outskirts Press provides:

• High quality products
• Step-by-step support
• Low costs compared to competitors
• 100 percent of publishing rights
• 100 percent of royalties

View the new promotional video here:

For more information about Outskirts Press, visit our website at www.OutskirtsPress.com.

Winning an EVVY Award is a prerequisite to being named the Outskirts Press 2012 Best Book of the Year Award-winner and walking away with the $1,500 Grand Prize. The Outskirts Press 2012 Best Book of the Year award recognizes the best book published by Outskirts Press in 2012 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 2012 Outskirts Press Best Book of the Year Award begins on this blog on Friday, May 31st.

In the meantime, congratulations to all our winners!

1st Place
Non-Fiction/Experiences

2nd Place
Fiction

Religion/Spirituality

3rd Place
Religion/Spirituality

Fiction

Autobiography/Memoirs

Merit Award
Fiction

Fiction

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

Little Girl in an Egg

by HigeSanbon

Price: $21.95

HigeSanbon’s “Little Girl in an Egg.” A masked monster riding, floating on a star. Suddenly the egg falls out of the tornado, hitting a masked monster. “Who is that! What is that! What happened!” The egg cracks open and out comes a little girl. A big, big fish was watching and….

Please note that product prices and availability are subject to change. Prices and availability were accurate at the time of this posting; however, they may differ from those you see when you visit Amazon.com.© Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates.All rights reserved. Amazon, Amazon.com, the Amazon.com logo, and 1-Click are registered trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates. Amazon.com, 410 Terry Avenue N., Seattle, WA 98109-5210.

Your book is written. Your book is published. Now what? Our list of Top 10 Book Marketing Tactics can help you prioritize your book marketing efforts by providing you with excellent marketing and promotional tactics you should consider pursuing.

These are the marketing products and services determined to be most popular by our authors for the month of April 2013, listed below in alphabetical order:

	Amazon Extreme Package: Save 25% on 3 of our marketing services focused on Amazon.com. This package includes a Kindle Edition of your book, participation in the Amazon Search Inside the Book and Amazon Cover Enhancement.
	Amazon Kindle Submission Service:  Make your book available on Amazon’s Kindle ebook reading device. More formats on Amazon means more exposure on Amazon, and the Kindle is heavily promoted by Amazon.
	Amazon Search Inside the Book: Amazon claims that books participating in this program enjoy “significant” sales improvement, on average, over books that do not.
	Apple iPad/iPhone Premium Edition with Private Label iBooks Distribution: Millions of iPads have been sold and iPhone revenues account for over HALF of all smart phone revenue in the United States. Is your book a part of this growing market share? It can be, simply and conveniently, with enhanced, independent distribution of your own iPad/iPhone electronic edition of your book through Apple’s iBookstore.
	Barnes & Noble NOOK Submission Service:  Millions of books are available on Barnes & Noble’s NOOK. If your book isn’t one of them, you are missing out on tapping a very important, and growing, market of readers.
	Barnes & Noble See Inside:  Barnes & Noble’s answer to Amazon’s “Search Inside the Book” program. Books that participate in this program receive a “See Inside” icon next to their Barnes & Noble cover image, which invites potential customers to electronically “flip” through a small section of the book.
	Custom Press Release:  Have our professional press release writer compose an original, unique press release for your book, submitted to you for your review/approval, and then distributed to our newswire service on your behalf.
	Marketing Personal Assistant: Do you need help developing a book marketing plan? Arranging book signings? Establishing/developing your author platform? Hire your own Personal Marketing Assistant today!
	Readers Favorite Award Submission: Want to gain notoriety as a self-published author? The best way is to become an award-winning author. With our Readers Favorite Book Award Submission, you have an opportunity to not only gain that notoriety but also receive additional free targeted book marketing services/promotion.
	Writer’s Digest Self-Published Award Submission: Now that so many books are published each year, customers look for “award-winning” books to spend their hard-earned dollars on. The only way to have an award-winning book is to enter contests, and this is one of the most prestigious.

Outskirts Press published authors who are interested in any of these (or many of our other available services) can find further details and ordering information from the Marketing options page of your author’s center.

Not yet published with Outskirts Press? Today is the perfect day to start and take advantage of our current publishing promotion…

Winning an EVVY Award is a prerequisite to winning the Outskirts Press Best Book of the Year Award and its $1,500 Grand Prize. The 2012 Best Book of the Year finalists will be announced on the Outskirts Press blog on May 20th, with public voting to take place to determine the winner on May 31st.

Could your unpublished manuscript be next year’s Best Book of the Year winner? There’s only one way to find out. Start publishing today.

Jump-start your marketing efforts into today’s media world with a Book Video Trailer! Start today with the promotion code below!

Book Videos feature Hollywood-style production values and a cutting edge look and feel. Outskirts Press distributes copies of the video through social networking and video sites like YouTube, Metacafe, Twitter, Facebook and many other contemporary social networking venues. Authors are given their own video file to use in their personal marketing efforts, as well. The book video trailer is like a movie trailer for your book. It’s cool. It’s hip. It’s now.

This valuable, popular option is now FREE for authors who start publishing in May. Start today with the promotion code below when you choose to publish with our industry-leading Diamond publishing service or our full-color Pearl publishing service to receive the FREE Book Video Trailer.

Enter the promotion code FreeBV13 when checking out of your shopping cart while purchasing the popular Diamond package or the full color Pearl publishing package by May 31, 2013.

In addition to receiving the free book video trailer, you’ll also get the following savings with your Diamond package:

• Standard Press Release  . $99 value included free when you order your Diamond publishing service today.
• Audio Excerpt . $99 value included free with your Diamond order today and a great way to share your voice with your readers, literally!
• E-Book Edition (pdf). $99 value included free with your Diamond publishing service.
• Cover Image. $99 value included free and a great way to enhance your cover.
• Spring Arbor additional distribution. $99 value to complement the Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Ingram availability already included with your Diamond publishing service.

All in all, you’re looking at $1,200 of free stuff in May!

• The value of a Personal Marketing Assistant in modern day book marketing
• Receive a book video absolutely free when you start publishing today
• How to hit your publishing goals before summer
• Top 10 self-publishing book marketing services for March 2013
• Go green & save green with new electronic edition self-publishing

“Outskirts Press made it easy for me to make my dream of publishing my story a reality. They broke the publishing process down into simple steps and had experts to help as I progressed through each one. I am currently writing another story and will definitely use Outskirts Press as my publisher once again.”

John Douglas was a teamster for 10 years in a grocery warehouse. He graduated from UW-Madison with a bachelor’s degree in Elementary Education and taught for 11 years. He and his students won the Scholastic “Kids Are Authors, Too” contest with a book titled One Day in the Life of Bubble Gum in his first year as a teacher. Born in La Crosse, Wisconsin, John now resides in Lake Ozark, Missouri.

John and Jessica had it all: a seemingly perfect balance of careers, family and love. But after 23 years of marriage-and on the day after their youngest child’s graduation from high school-Jessica lets John know that she no longer wants to be married, leaving John, the kids, their family and friends floored by this stunning revelation. Shock and Awww in the Cul-de-Sac is the story of John’s journey through the uncharted territory of life as a single father: therapy sessions, the pain of repeatedly telling family and friends the sad news, reentering the dating scene, and ultimately finding a new life for himself. All the while, John tries to appear strong on the outside for the kids as he goes through the many ups and downs of divorce. Emotional memories pop up, new life experiences are formed, and the pitfalls of the divorce process are revealed in a realistic yet upbeat and humorous way. The story takes many twists and turns, as a man who is emotionally devastated tries to find the strength and will to reshape his future-a future that will undoubtedly be very different from the future that he had pictured. This is a heartfelt, honest book that will resonate with anyone whose life path has taken a sudden and unexpected twist.

- John Douglas, author of Shock and Awww in the Cul-De-Sac

Surviving Mental Illness
Readers Favorite Book Award Winner
Reader Views Reviewers Choice Award

by Linda Naomi Katz

(4.3 Stars – 5 Customer Reviews)

Price: $13.95

Linda Naomi Katz’s “Surviving Mental Illness.” Written from the perspective of someone whose life has been challenged by mental illness, this book offers help, hope, and inspiration to others struggling with psychological disorders. It provides information about mental illness in general-and mood disorders in particular-valuable tips about treatment and medication, and resources and organizations dedicated to helping those suffering from these disorders.

Please note that product prices and availability are subject to change. Prices and availability were accurate at the time of this posting; however, they may differ from those you see when you visit Amazon.com.© Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates.All rights reserved. Amazon, Amazon.com, the Amazon.com logo, and 1-Click are registered trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates. Amazon.com, 410 Terry Avenue N., Seattle, WA 98109-5210.

Outskirts Press, the leading self-publishing and book marketing service provider, announced today the launch of its Elite E-book Publishing Package, which bundles three valuable e-book distribution services into one discounted publishing package. The package represents more than 25 percent savings when compared to purchasing each electronic edition separately.

The Elite E-book Publishing Package is priced hundreds of dollars below what an author would pay for a-la-carte electronic publishing services. Plus, the increased ebook exposure means greater distribution and higher sales without the need for additional paperback and hardback printing.

While self-publishing authors can still choose one or two electronic formats, combining the three allows them to reach a wider audience of readers, many of which are loyal to one electronic reading device over another. Outskirts Press simplifies the process by offering one convenient and cost-effective package that includes three popular electronic book editions:

• Amazon Kindle Edition: Only books that have been submitted to Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) in the required format are available for Kindle readers to purchase and enjoy.
• Apple iPad/iPhone Premium Edition: This service allows authors convenient, full distribution of iPad/iPhone electronic editions of their own books through Apple’s popular iBookstore.
• Barnes & Noble NOOK Edition: Inclusion in this virtual bookstore allows self-published authors to tap into an important, and growing, market of readers.

For more complete information about each service included in this bundle, visit the product description page at www.outskirtspress.com/ebookpackage.