Querying and Book Awards

As I have been writing about, I am currently in the process of querying my work in progress. Last week I wrote about one of the things we can all do to become a better querier, and that is to learn more about the publishing business. My approach was to go with an indie press which pretty much leaves all of the marketing up to the author. While we would all like the full weight of Penguin behind us, it is still important to understand the process of selling and a good primer on the topic is to actually go out and try to sell your book. But I warn you, it is a lot like drinking from a firehose so you better be thirsty.

If you've done any marketing at all you already know that saying your own book is good is the sign of a true amateur. Sure you've got to believe in your product, but books are like babies and momma always thinks her kid is cute. Using subjective terms that praise your own work in a query is a shortcut to the trashcan.

What you are looking for then, is for someone else to say your book is good. And I don't mean your mother or your best friend from college. Someone who the people you are querying might consider objective. Reviews are one way to do that but getting reviews from reputable people is pretty tough. There are SO many books out there and few well-known reviewers take the time to read indie novels. What is an author to do?

Okay, so I didn't win this one. Yet.

One route to objective reviews are book contests. Yes you have to pay for most of them, and there are a bajillion of them out there. It seems like every other blogger is running a book contest these days. Send in $75 and a copy of your book and you too can become an award winning author! Sadly, despite what may be some very sincere intentions, a lot of these do come off as scams. So how can you tell the difference?

While I'm no authority on book contests, my criteria for deciding what was legit and what was... we'll say, wannabe, was how long it's been around. One of the contests for independently published books that's been around the longest is the Eric Hoffer Awards. The award is named after an uneducated and self-trained American philosopher who wrote about the "nature of mass movements and the essence of humankind." Since The Silla Project is a novel that very much explores the human condition and borders on literary, I thought it might be worth giving it a shot. Or rather, my brilliant writing partner, Terri-Lynne Smiles, suggested I give it a go.

Well the winners were finally announced this week and I was thrilled to see that not only had The Silla Project been chosen as a finalist for the Montaigne Medal, but it was also a finalist in the Commercial Fiction category, one of the categories that receives the most entries. Naturally I would have preferred to be the winner, but to be chosen as one of the top thrillers out of hundreds submitted is quite an honor considering it was the first book I wrote.

Can't you just feel it about to go?

But beyond the momentary endorphine rush of being formally recognized, and much more importantly, it gives me a credential. Two of them in fact - finalist for the Montaigne Medal and finalist in the Eric Hoffer Award. And as I send out this latest round of queries, the first that I've been able to cite a credential in, it will be interesting to see if it has any effect on the agents and editors I have chosen. I'll keep you posted on how this goes, however, as you know, hearing back from literary professionals is like studying glaciers. Things don't appear to change at all until a piece the size of Delaware suddenly cracks off and raises the global sea level a half-inch!

John C. Brewer is the author of Multiplayer an MMOG YA SF novel, and The Silla Project, a North Korean nuclear romance that was a finalist for the 2013 Eric Hoffer Awards and the 2013 Montaigne Medal. You can learn more about him and what he is doing at his website, JohnCBrewer.com

The Silla Project and the Montaigne Medal

As an independently published writer, I don't get a lot of accolades. Those of you who have taken the plunge understand what I'm talking about. You know your work is good but for whatever reason, it hasn't caught on with a large publisher yet.

Regardless of the reason you go with a small publisher, it means you're got a tough road ahead of you. As with a large publisher, the author is responsible for the bulk of the marketing. However, without a large publisher you don't have something that traditionally published authors do - cred. Short for, credibility. This is unfortunate since some of the best books I've read in years have been independently published.

At the same time, some of the worst books I've ever read are also independently published. Often, seemingly, without even running spell check. And that alone wouldn't have fixed the massive grammatical and continuity errors in the even the first few pages. Aside from the nonexistent plot and playing-card thin characters.

But being independently published, even if your work is good, the feedback comes slow. Getting reviews is hard. Getting reviews from established and respected reviewers is even harder. Getting the word out to buyers seems even more impossible at times. So each one of those positive reviews can be like gold to the indie-pubbed writer. But even those can get old when sales are lagging. You can get to doubting yourself and wondering if your work is any good.

With that in mind, and knowing that feeling only too well, I was delighted to get an email today from the Eric Hoffer Award for Books. They've been around for a dozen years now and have grown to be one of the largest and most respected indie book awards out there. Each year they get thousands of submissions and pick just a few for a variety of categories. The grand prize even has a $2,000 cash award. So hearing that my novel, The Silla Project is a finalist for the Montaigne Medal was quite a rush! 

In addition to the normal categories, the Eric Hoffer Award for Books gives out several medals for special categories. The Da Vinci Eye goes to the best cover art. The First Horizon Award goes to exceptional work by debut authors. And the Montaigne Award is given to a few books that best exemplify the ideals of the great, French Renaissance philosopher Michel de Montaigne, as works that illuminate, progress, or redirect thought. I can't be more proud and thrilled that The Silla Project is a finalist for this respected award. But then, I've known for some time that no one who reads The Silla Project comes away unchanged.

The Silla Project is not a normal book. It began as a dream. A way out of having to rely on engineering to pay my bills. I was going to write thrillers and be the next Tom Clancy! It was a twist of fate that led to my choosing to set the story in North Korea. It was the plight of the North Korean people that redirected my thoughts to telling their story.

After four years of intensive - some would say obsessive - study of North Korea and nuclear weapons, I had lost all interest in writing a mass market thriller. It became my mission to do what I could to bring the horror of that evil regime to light in a way people could relate to. To help the people trapped in that real-life Zombie apocalypse. So it is with tremendous hope that the honor of being a finalist for the Montaigne Medal might help The Silla Project achieve a wider audience and help others to come to understand North Korea for what it is. As my friend, fan, and inventor of high-temperature conductivity, Dr. Jim Ashburn said, "It may be the largest hostage crisis of all time."

Until next time,

John C. Brewer

John C. Brewer is the author of Multiplayer an MMOG YA SF novel, and The Silla Project, a North Korean nuclear romance. You can learn more about him and what he is doing at his website, JohnCBrewer.com