# For Authors--2010 Next Generation Indie Book Awards



## Karen_McQ (Aug 9, 2009)

In my Publishers Lunch email today there was this notice:

Call for Entries - 2010 Next Generation Indie Book Awards

Calling all indie authors and publishers - including small and mid-size independent publishers, university presses, e-book publishers, and self-published authors. Enter the Next Generation Indie Book Awards™ now to have your book considered for cash prizes of $1,500, awards, exposure, and recognition as one of the top independently published books of the year!

The top 60 books will be reviewed by New York literary agent Marilyn Allen or her co-agents for possible representation in areas such as distribution, foreign rights, and film rights. Ms. Allen has served as Senior Vice President of Harper Collins, directed sales and marketing teams for Simon & Schuster and Penguin Books, and worked with authors such as Stephen King, Ken Follett, and Barbara Kingsolver.

Visit www.IndieBookAwards.com to enter.

I was pretty excited about this until I saw it cost $75 to enter. Pretty pricey.  Still, I think the existence of a contest like this shows there's interest in indie books.


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## Gertie Kindle (Nov 6, 2008)

Karen_McQ said:


> In my Publishers Lunch email today there was this notice:
> 
> Call for Entries - 2010 Next Generation Indie Book Awards
> 
> ...


Sounds to me like she's going to get the prize money from the entry fees and she'll pump up her client list at the same time.

I wouldn't go so far as to say it's a scam, but I think it's an agent trying to promote herself and not a legitimate contest.


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## Michael R. Hicks (Oct 29, 2008)

Yeah, that looks like a would-be competitor for the Independent Publisher Awards at http://independentpublisher.com (which I did submit to this year). They got my $75...


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## MariaESchneider (Aug 1, 2009)

Most of those book awards have fees (ranging from about 50 to 200.)  That is a pretty standard fee.  That said--the chances of recognition is very small because competition is going to be tough.  I've read a few blogs of small publishers concerning these award contests.  One editor explained that at first she entered up to 5 books that she thought would do well--then over the years, maybe 1 if the category was dead-on or she had read enough reviews by the judges to know if that judge might like the work.  

Writing contests are similar--very small chance of recognition.  The difference is that there are writing contests with no fees.  Thus far I haven't found any good contests for entering Indie work that didn't cost at least 50 bucks.  That's a lot of sales for a "maybe representation" and money award.

It is nice that more of these awards will take self-published and small publisher books.  It's not so great that the fees attached...are more money from the writers into the pockets of those in the industry...


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## Michael R. Hicks (Oct 29, 2008)

Yeah, I agree. I decided to toss my hat in the ring for the IPPY award this year only because I haven't done it and figured I should at least once. But I'm not going to toss out $50+ in a lottery - I'd rather spend the money sending out copies of my books to reviewers and doing other promo stuff (at least I would if I had the time to do it! LOL!)...


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## Archer (Apr 25, 2009)

One must be careful to investigate these contests. Some have impressive names, but little meaning. For example, an indie author was touting his fantasy book as being a finalist in the (impressive-sounding name) awards competition. I purchased the book.  If THAT was a finalist, may heaven help us all! (One of the worst I'd ever read...seriously!)

I will avoid any competition if I must struggle to decide the category to enter my books in. If there's no fantasy category, that says a lot right there. Actually, I've run into several (including Foreword's BOTY) that have categories for everything BUT fantasy. Run away, Sir Bedevere! Run away!!!

I did enter the same competition twice (two years in a row) because I know the organization sponsoring it. It was fun and not very expensive. But you can 'enter' yourself into the poor house pretty quick!


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## Kristen Tsetsi (Sep 1, 2009)

Gertie Kindle 'a/k/a Margaret Lake' said:


> Sounds to me like she's going to get the prize money from the entry fees and she'll pump up her client list at the same time.
> 
> I wouldn't go so far as to say it's a scam, but I think it's an agent trying to promote herself and not a legitimate contest.


That award money comes from entry fees isn't unusual. If it were a scam, they'd charge a lot of money and slap a sticker on the winner. The fiction journal I edit, American Fiction, charges per entry and uses that money to cover the cost of awards ($1,000, $500, and $250 for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd), compensation for the judge (judges have included Joyce Carol Oates, Tim O'Brien, and others), and publishing costs.


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## Karen_McQ (Aug 9, 2009)

Wow, I'm really learning a lot about writing contests. The Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award is starting to look better and better. No entry fee and the winner gets published by Penguin Putnam. This year they're allowing self-published books.

[URL=http://us.penguingroup.com/static/pages/features/amazonbreakthrough/index]http://us.penguingroup.com/static/pages/features/amazonbreakthrough/index.html[/url]


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## MariaESchneider (Aug 1, 2009)

I prefer the ones without an entry fee (as far as  writing contests) but I don't know of any book awards (for self-published or traditional) that don't include a fee.  Thus far, I can't see spending money on it.  Getting reviews is *probably* more effective.  I'm not against awards, and I do understand that some are done to make an organization money, it's just not something I want to do.  It's hard enough to break even in self-publishing; I try to be careful about spending money on a "chance" at recognition especially if there are other areas such a reviewers willing to look at my books and talk about them for nothing more than a copy of the book.


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## TC Beacham (Nov 23, 2009)

Karen_McQ said:


> Wow, I'm really learning a lot about writing contests. The Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award is starting to look better and better. No entry fee and the winner gets published by Penguin Putnam. This year they're allowing self-published books.
> 
> [URL=http://us.penguingroup.com/static/pages/features/amazonbreakthrough/index]http://us.penguingroup.com/static/pages/features/amazonbreakthrough/index.html[/url]


I saw the Indie Book Award announcement today too, and thought the same thing - the Breakthrough Award looks better and better!


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## Michael R. Hicks (Oct 29, 2008)

Submitting to the Amazon competition is probably a no-brainer, since it's free. The downside is that (if I'm reading the rules correctly) you have to submit a 300-word blurb to get yourself into the first round of 1000 sorta-finalists. Past that, the bummer is that they're only going to pick two books, one for general fiction and one for young adult. The other award thingies generally seem to have category winners, which I thought was nice (despite the price tag) because sci-fi/fantasy books - as an extremely gross generalization - don't generally percolate to the top in the overall fiction bin.

But, what the heck - for a "fee" of a 300-word blurb, the worst that can happen is that ya don't win!


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## Christopher Meeks (Aug 2, 2009)

For you independent authors with printed books, there is the Foreword Book-of-the-Year Award. You can read it at http://www.forewordmagazine.com/publisher/book-year-awards. It, too, costs $75, but there are a lot of categories, and it's a major magazine. That requires a lot of belief in one's book. You're not going up against big publishers, but there are many mid-size and smaller publishers involved. Winning one of those Awards, though, can get your books in libraries and bookstores.


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## Archer (Apr 25, 2009)

No fantasy category, though.
Why on earth not?

I'd be stuck with YA or 'general fiction'--what's the point!


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## Jeff (Oct 28, 2008)

Karen_McQ said:


> No entry fee and the winner gets published by Penguin Putnam.


And must agree in advance that the contact is non-negotiable.


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## Kristen Tsetsi (Sep 1, 2009)

Jeff said:


> And must agree in advance that the contact is non-negotiable.


That's an important point. I hadn't seen it when I asked my agent for an opinion about my entering, and I was then told that on the [off-off] off-chance I won, I'd not be able to use my agent to negotiate since there would be no negotiations. So, not entering.


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## Randolphlalonde (Sep 12, 2009)

I have a general rule not to spend any cash on publicity, review or distribution services, and when you really think about it, these contests are offering a slim to none chance at the above services and a cash return.

When I'm looking at spending money where publishing is concerned these days, I can't help but wonder what the people who provide me with an income would think of my expenditures (I'm talking about my readers). The $75.00 could pay for one hell of a book trailer if I do the writing, casting, directing and editing myself (taking a few voice actors to lunch / coffee, buying stock footage, acquiring music rights, paying someone for their expertise in a place where I'm lacking skill are all things that could be covered by the $75.00). I could also commission an artist to start work on a custom cover, or even fund a contest of my own directed at my readers.

$75.00 doesn't seem like much, but it can do a lot for one indie title if you spend it directly on that offering, as opposed to letting chance get a bite. I guess I'm not a gambler.


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## Michael R. Hicks (Oct 29, 2008)

As a general rule, I'd agree: I refuse to pay for any advertising. I've had a couple of small businesses in the past, and it seemed like the only people who benefited from the money I spent on advertising were the advertisers.

As for the award route, I agree that $75 isn't chump change for an indie author, and as Randolph indicated, could be used to make some good promo materials. I just decided to take a shot at the IPPY this year just for the heck of it, and because I had the good fortune of making enough from my writing that it wasn't totally unreasonable. But it's *not* something I plan on doing repeatedly. I have too many other things I want to spend my pennies on!


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## Gertie Kindle (Nov 6, 2008)

As far as I'm concerned, this is just like paying an agent to read your book with no guaranty that they'll even represent you.

Good luck, Mike. You've really got a shot at something with _In Her Name_.


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## Michael R. Hicks (Oct 29, 2008)

Gertie Kindle 'a/k/a Margaret Lake' said:


> As far as I'm concerned, this is just like paying an agent to read your book with no guaranty that they'll even represent you.
> 
> Good luck, Mike. You've really got a shot at something with _In Her Name_.


Well, we'll see. I thought I'd give it a whirl for fun, but even if a person wins one of these things, I suspect the main advantage is being able to say that you won it in promotional blurbs. I don't know how useful that really is, but what the heck. I'll try *almost* anything once!


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## Jeff (Oct 28, 2008)

kreelanwarrior said:


> Well, we'll see. I thought I'd give it a whirl for fun, but even if a person wins one of these things, I suspect the main advantage is being able to say that you won it in promotional blurbs. I don't know how useful that really is, but what the heck. I'll try *almost* anything once!


It would almost certainly be beneficial to say "my award winning novel". Good luck.


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## Kristen Tsetsi (Sep 1, 2009)

Jeff said:


> It would almost certainly be beneficial to say "my award winning novel".


Agreed.


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## Karen_McQ (Aug 9, 2009)

Randolphlalonde said:


> The $75.00 could pay for one hell of a book trailer if I do the writing, casting, directing and editing myself (taking a few voice actors to lunch / coffee, buying stock footage, acquiring music rights, paying someone for their expertise in a place where I'm lacking skill are all things that could be covered by the $75.00). I could also commission an artist to start work on a custom cover, or even fund a contest of my own directed at my readers.


Some really great ideas here. It's all about resources--we all have limited time, energy and money, and it pays to use them to the best advantage.

Still, I wouldn't mind being able to say "my award winning novel."


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