Award nominations can be tricky.

Indie book awards are just damn frightening.

There are so many organizations that run competitions for independent books and a LOT charge fees just to enter. BUT someone out there nominated Book 1 of my Embracing Entropy Series: By the Stars for a Summer Indie Book Award. (Should I be looking at you Elisha Neubauer? I have no idea haha)

https://www.amazon.com/Stars-Book-One-Embracing-Entropy-ebook/dp/B0128Z4FLE/ref=sr_1_12?ie=UTF8&qid=1474407540&sr=8-12&keywords=by+the+stars

These awards are free to enter, nominations are done by an outside party, AND they are solely based on…votes. GULP

Lots of mixed feelings arose here. Voting is a great way to let THE READERS choose what is best as opposed to committee or judges. My readers are the best readers, but we all have busy lives so I wasn’t sure how this would go. I was nervous. NO, I was beyond nervous, I was downright terrified of the entire process.

Being a writer makes you crazy. You have to be confident even when you feel worthless. being an author just takes that further. You have to promote your work even when you fear that is will never be good enough.

Somehow I made it through the 10 day polling terror and allowed myself to focus on more relaxing areas, like writing more content to fret over later. Last Sunday I had a book signing in Chicago.  I drove 4 & 1/2 hours to stand for 8 hours, meet and greet, sell books and sign them and drive back home so I could be at work on Monday.

Whoever said a writer’s life is boring didn’t know very lively writers because I’m always having adventures. This particular one didn’t go as well as I had hoped, so when I had some free time I checked the results expecting to graciously thank everyone for voting and say “Maybe we’ll get em next time.” You know, the usual.

I had hoped to maybe take 3rd place. 3rd place is a nice finish. Instead I found that my baby, By the Stars came in 2nd place!

I kept double checking to make sure it was posted properly. Then on the way back to St. Louis I kept thinking I would get home and find out there had been some mistake. Nope.

As my boyfriend would say, I am now officially an award winning author, and it came about in the best way. It came from YOU. That makes this even more special.

I appreciate judges and qualified editors, but having readers and writers alike get me to 2nd place make it that much sweeter. I really do love you guys. It’s the reason I write.

I have many more projects in the works and I plan to live up to everything you expect of me. Thank you!