Indie Book awards

For the second year, I’ve been a judge for an independent book association’s award. They’ve asked their name not be mentioned until the contest is over. However, I do have some notes for independent publishers entering contests.

As a judge, I am given specific directions for scoring five areas and told how each section is weighted. In this contest, twenty percent is for cover and interior design. They list various details that should be included on the cover – including a readable price. The interior should follow industry standards – and the design should match the look and feel of the cover. Both should fit genre expectations. Another ten percent addresses text mechanics - typos and such. The remaining seventy percent covers quality of writing, content, and structure.

I read and scored four books over the summer:

• One was technically excellent, but the content was rather repetitive.

• In another novel’s acknowledgements, the author thanked someone for proofing the manuscript carefully for typos. I think I found one, which is comparable to any novel from any publisher. However, that author really needed an editor. There were problems with the structure of the story and basic sentence structure.

• The third book was a collection of short stories, fairly well done, but the opening paragraphs were confusing to a reader without specific geographic knowledge and there were places where a good editor would have pointed out tense and continuity issues.

• The last book was non-fiction with exceptional writing and content. The main flaws were in the book design. While there were interesting design elements, they were not applied consistently and did not follow industry standards where they should have.

Takeaways if you want to do well in indie book awards:

• Edit at all levels! Comprehensive (aka substantive) editing addresses issues with the story structure, character development, consistency, etc. Copyediting is essential if you tend to write run-on sentences or change tense from one sentence to the next. Reading for typos is proofing and should be left until all revisions are done and you get a proof copy printed.

• Know what books in your genre look like. That is what will attract your audience.

• Know publication standards so your book looks professional – even if you hire a designer, you need to know if they’re doing it right.

• If you are entering a contest, ask if they’ll share information on how they score. They may not, but if they do, make sure you meet their standards before entering.

s Mcguinn-Author - sheri mcguinn's new facebook page

Mountain

What a learning curve! Straight uphill.

Sheri McGuinn's new Facebook page is S McGuinn - Author. I made this for professional use, but it's linked to my personal page via my email, so I'm not sure "boosting" a post on S McGuinn - Author will actually boost the new site or if it will be pushing my personal site. I did a very small boost for two days to check it out. If I've loused up, I'll try to separate them later this week. Don't give up on me!

What all this means?

Yes, I'm prepping a new novel for publication, working it through a critique group. I'm also working on a memoir, but I'm not sure that will be published beyond family.

Let's blame covid

The end of 2018, I sold my home and moved in with my son in Needles, CA. The plan was to help him with his fixer for a year or so while I decided where to live next. His siblings with children both live in areas I can't afford. I had a minor foot surgery scheduled for the end of January 2020. Once that healed, I was going to find my own home again!

Of course it didn't happen that way. Instead of house hunting, I was shopping online and wearing my painter's mask when I had to go to the grocery store. I watched more television in 2020 than I have at any other time in my life, binge-watching series I'd heard of but had never seen and calling it research for screenwriting. Right. A lot of it was simple inertia. But I wasn't a complete slug. I kept working on my novels and editing.

I finished up 2020 by publishing Peg's Story: Detours and Running Away: Maggie's Story. Peg's the mom in my first novel, Running Away, and readers had asked for her story. The character took over at the bus station and shocked me by bringing trafficking and other issues I hadn't anticipated into her story, so it took forever to write. Maggie's Story is a mildly revised version of Running Away - primarily updating quotes from Peg's journal to match the new book.

In March 2021, I published Tough Times, which is Michael Dolan McCarthy's story lightly revised, re-titled, and given a fresh cover. I can't believe I never posted here about these books! I've done a wee bit of promotion and sales are happening, but I really need to do better. I have entered the books in some contests and have submitted several short stories to publications. No great results yet, but a lot of it's still out there. I'm continuing to write and submit. I've also done some editing this year.

One good thing about COVID - Capital Film Arts Alliance in Sacramento went online with their screenwriter and other meetings. I got to rejoin and participate from eight hours away! That got me working on my scripts, too. I prepped and submitted a feature-length script of Tough Times and three shorts to the Austin Writers Conference and Film Festival. They had over 14,000 entries for a handful of awards. No, I didn't win. I did attend the conference in October, which was exhausting and exhilarating all at once.

Other bits about 2021:

I spent about ten weeks on the road - one to the burn area in Northern California and two cross-country trips - going to a reunion, visiting family, looking at real estate, and going to the conference in Austin.

I've spent a lot of time on cars and insurance. On June 9th I made the wrong left turn and a truck killed my Kia Rio. No injuries, but I was due to leave on the first big trip, so I bought my son's 2020 Mitsubishi Mirage. On June 30, I was driving on a dark road in Wisconsin when a really big deer tried to fly over the hood. While he smashed into the windshield, his forward momentum carried him on across the car instead of his landing in my lap, so I wasn’t hurt. However, that was the end of that car, too. Not my normal June.

I finished the trip in my first automatic - a 2010 Ford Escape. Still getting used to it; still searching real estate; still writing and editing while I figure out the design of my future.