This year, we have a brand-new batch of quality EVVY Award nominees to brag about! The EVVYs are an acclaimed annual award program sponsored by the Colorado Independent Publishers’ Association, or CIPA, which recognize and raise the profile of excellent independently published books. The EVVYs are judged by a panel of professionals on a qualitative scale of merit in a set of categories which broadens each year. As of 2017, there are fifty-one of these categories!
Each year, Outskirts Press officially nominates a small percentage of the books published during the year for submission to the EVVY Awards. Since a nomination is the first step toward receiving the Outskirts Press Best Book of the Year Award, the standards are exceedingly high; we nominate, on average, just 2% of the books we publish each year-and these nominations represent the very best of our publications as determined by our executives and members of our production teams.
Outskirts Press official nominees and winners receive additional exposure of their books in featured Outskirts Press marketing channels, including our blog, social media networks, and in our email newsletters. The winners are announced during an awards ceremony hosted by the Colorado Independent Publishers Association in May.
Congratulations to this year’s Official Outskirts Press EVVY Award nominees, presented alphabetically below:
There’s more!
As a result of being nominated for the EVVY Awards, these Outskirts Press authors have taken the first step toward winning the coveted Outskirts Press Best Book of the Year Award. Three of the nominees above who subsequently win an EVVY Award during the CIPA banquet this coming May will be selected as Semi-Finalists for our annual Best Book of the Year Award and its $1,500 Grand Prize. Stay tuned.
All of these books, along with other Outskirts Press titles, are available from the major online book retailers like Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Powell’s, Books-A-Million and others, plus conveniently from the Outskirts Press bookstore. To learn more about our products and services, as well as upcoming and current promotions, visit us online at www.outskirtspress.com or call us at 1-888-672-6657 to speak with a Publishing Consultant.
At Outskirts Press, Inc., we take great pride in celebrating the work of our successful self-publishing authors, and we do so each week through our Self-Publishing Author Spotlight. This week we highlight self-publishing author Barbara A. Cefalu, who has published three successful titles with Outskirts Press and is currently working on three more.
Learn more about Barbara and her musical background which has catapulted her series into a staged musical and more through this week’s Self-Publishing Author Spotlight.
About the Author:
Barbara A. Cefalu is a musician/composer/author who has written several musicals and plays. The Adventures Of Patty-Cat And Kittle is not only a book with Illustrations by Emmanuel Saltis and Storyline Edits & Storyboard by Skyler Dennon, the team has turned it into a staged musical with a CD of the songs also available. Barbara lives with her cat, Puddy, in Florida, while the rest of the creative team reside in San Diego, CA.
The Adventures of Patty-Cat and Kittle
What do bouncing, biting, unemployable sheep dogs, sniping spiders, irritated ants, and getting-under-everyone’s-skin, Cousin Fred (addicted to catnip and trouble), plus Billy-Bom-Tom-Cat all have in common? They’re the ones Patty-Cat and Kittle, two adventurous little kittens, meet and deal with, and sometimes it’s not easy! Patty-Cat and Kittle came to live with Angel at 112 Liver Lane, and life is far from dull. Two sheep dogs, Hal and Sam, come snarling down the street, snapping at each other and when Kittle tries to stop them, they turn on her. She suggests they could be nicer to each other, but alas, peacemakers are never appreciated. Off they go, snarling and biting, hoping to fight Hector the goat.
Cousin Fred comes for a visit and disrupts the whole household. Nothing he does turns out right. He spills gingerbread batter all over the kitchen, breaks things, disappears and refuses to do chores. Fred meets a disreputable ruffian called Billy-Bom-Tom-Cat who leads him to a catnip café. Before he is totally beat up, Kittle comes to the rescue and escorts him home. But Fred finds music, banging on the piano, and finally is sent to music school.
The goblins started the trouble. From their viewpoint, anyone entering Grants Wood was fair game. But tell that to Mr. Billy-Bom-Tom-Cat, and later to Chester… It all started with the ice festival. Patty-Cat and Kittle, who lived with their mother, Angel, at 112 Liver Lane, and their friends, Chester and Susie went to the Ice Festival. It was held each year on the meadow next to Grants Wood, where a pond had been frozen over and where ice bat-ball was played. Colorful booths with games of chance and food items were displayed. While the kittens were there they saw Mr.-Billy-Bom-Tom-Cat being escorted to the edge of the meadow, who then slowly entered the woods. When the kittens heard that fairies were also to be found there, but never seen, the four kittens went exploring Grants Wood. Unfortunately Chester was captured by hostile goblins, but the fairies came to the rescue. Two rambunctious and irresponsible sheep dogs, a nasty black widow spider, the talented Cousin Fred, now in music school, other friends and families of the four kittens all come and go and play a part in the lives of all those who live in Katville. Won’t you join us and read all about the exciting lives of Patty-Cat and Kittle and their friends.
The Adventures of Patty-Cat, Kittle, and the Prince of Peace
Excitement is running high at 112 Liver Lane, where Angel, and her two kittens, Patty-Cat and Kittle, are preparing for the holiday season. Cousin Fred and his mother, Sunny, are expected to visit, there’s baking to be done, gifts to wrap, a tree to decorate. Of course, first they need to get a tree. A Christmas parade is planned for the residents of Katville. The mayor and dignitaries will attend and friends will be in the parade. Just to prove that few things go smoothly a grinding noise shatters nerves; plaster and dirt fill the air, and … horror, of horrors, that impish elf, Grimsby appears, creating turmoil and scattering debris everywhere. Fortunately this time he brings a tree and of course it has to be decorated. The annoying resident spider, Miss Wilma Weaver, likes to stir up things, and the two sheep dogs, Hal and Sam, romp through the season, as joyfully and stupid and rambunctious as ever. Two new kittens come to town, one unhappy feisty one and another who was cruelly abandoned. Miss Maisey and Miss Katty-Kat, sisters who live next door at 114 Liver Lane, receive an unexpected but cherished Christmas gift and the animals all gather for the solemn Midnight event. If you are curious as to how the two sisters become kind and happy, (quite an about-face), or if you want to find out how everything ends, or if you just want a good read, try this book.
