Exciting news! The Crow's Rest audiobook is a finalist in the IBPA Benjamin Franklin Awards!
Here is a snippet of their press release: "Today, the Independent Book Publishers Association (IBPA) officially announced finalists in its prestigious IBPA Benjamin Franklin Awards™ program, recognizing excellence and innovation in independent publishing. All finalists will be recognized during an awards ceremony on April 5, 2019 in Chicago, Illinois where one Gold winner in each of fifty-four categories will be named. The remaining finalists in each category will become Silver winners.
The full list of finalists in all fifty-four categories is available here."
Considering that this is the first audiobook my Crow & Pitcer Press has produced, and narrator Brenda Scott Wlazlo has only been doing voice work for a year, this is a great honor for our joint project. Brenda is attending the awards banquet in Chicago on April 5th, so everybody cross their finger on our behalf please!
Plus, award season is only starting!
Crow's Rest and Merlin's Stronghold print and ebook editions are also entered into other competitions. The Northern California Publishers and Authors book competition, where Capturing the Castle took second place in the Pictorial category last year, will be announcing this year's winners on April 14th.
And Self-Publishing Review announces their SPR Book Award winners on April 10th, with Audio Book Reviewer announcing their finalists in April also. In the majority of these competitions, the series is entered in the young adult category, or in Fantasy if there is no YA-specific category. It's going to be nerve-wracking to wait to find out for all these awards!
So why did Crow & Pitcher Press/I enter these competitions? For reviews and for competitions, it can be difficult for indie or self-published authors to get a fair shake (which is why reader reviews can be lifesavers). These competitions are all reputable organizations and competitions, and have standards to evaluate the entries. Not that others don't have standards--it's just that some of those standards mean that indie books aren't even allowed to enter. So this is a way for me to compare the quality of my work against my peers, which may include traditionally-published as well as indie.
