What are the Top 5 Fiction Awards?

There are many fiction awards given each year to authors around the world. These awards go to some of the most talented fiction writers in the field. The authors nominated for these awards work in all genres of fiction. Each award has its own reputation and prestige. Although there are many fiction awards, there are 5 that are widely sought after.

Guardian First Book Award

The Guardian First Book Award is given to new authors of fiction. These are authors who have not yet published their work. The Guardian First Book Award was first awarded in 1965. This is a British literary award. The winner of this award receives not only accolades; they also get a cash prize. The prize is $5000.

One of the greatest things about this specific award is the fact that it goes to an author who is unknown. This is a way to celebrate new authors, and to encourage future ones.

Young Adult Fiction Award

The Young Adult Fiction Award is an adolescent fiction award whose theme comes from the Michael L. Printz Award. This award targets the area of fiction which focuses specifically on adolescent writing. Today, this portion of fiction is some of the most popular and lucrative. Millions of copies of adolescent fiction are sold in bookstores each year.

Because of this, audiences and publishers are taking notice of this specific genre. Readers can look forward to seeing more and more of these books on bookshelves.

ABC Fiction Award

The ABC Fiction Award is an Australian literature award for the best original, unpublished, adult fiction manuscript. This award also comes with a cash prize of $10,000. The winner will also have their manuscript published by ABC Books.

This award is truly one of the most sought after awards. If the cash prize wasn’t enough, the opportunity to publish is incentive for writers.

Independent Spirit’s Truer than Fiction Award

The Independent Spirit’s Truer than Fiction Award is awarded by Film Independent. Although this award doesn’t hold a cash prize, winning it is prestigious. Many past winners have gone on to accomplish big things in the literary community.

PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction

The PEN/Faulkner Award is given to the best writer of American fiction. The winner of this award is awarded $15,000. The next 4 runner ups also receive cash. They each get $5,000 awards.

Winners will also be treated to a trip to Washington, D.C. Here, their works will be read aloud in the Great Hall of Folger Shakespeare Library. This award is truly special and comes with wonderful incentives. Because of the reputation that goes along with this award, many fiction writers hope to be able to participate.

Each of these 5 fiction awards are honorable ways to celebrate the great work being done in fiction today. They not only acknowledge the authors of these works, but they also serve as encouragement. Many writers are inspired to work harder, because of their chances to win some of the top fiction awards in the literary world.

How to Write an Award Winning Children’s Book

Children’s books are a very unique type of fiction. These books need to be patterned to the specific age group the author is writing for. If one is writing for young children, the subject matter should cater to them. Not only would these books be simple to read, they would contain illustrations.

When an author is writing for older children, the writing must mature to their age level. Taking these things into consideration is important when writing children’s books. Children know what types of books interest them and can be harsh critics. This is one reason why children’s books range in not only age levels, but in variety of subject matter.

Authors who want to write for children must come up with an original idea or theme.

This doesn’t mean that the author must think of something that hasn’t been thought of before. There’s not much on that front. It simply means, however, that his or her approach should be original. This requires the author to put his or her personality into the story itself.

Most often these books are brought to life by the presence of a good idea. The author may take similar points from adult books and change them to fit a younger crowd. Some authors simply use their imagination when coming up with unique ideas for books for children. These are some of the greatest sellers in this genre.

Other authors simply begin their writing process with a theme. For instance, the theme could be related to insects. From there the author would expand upon the theme, and add more and more to it. Finally, they will have created, a wonderful literary work, which appeals to the intended audience.

The overall story line is very important when writing a children’s book.

Children know when they read a boring book. In fact, if a work is too dull, a child may not continue reading it. One of the things that makes a work, dull is a flat story line. Authors must place extreme care into the development of their story lines. This is just as important in children’s writing, as it is in adult books.

Story line is even more crucial when it comes to nonfiction. A work of fiction may easily grab the reader’s imagination. But nonfiction must find a way to hit the point directly, while remaining interesting to the reader. Keeping this in mind for young readers will be instrumental in the success of the book.

Creating memorable characters cannot only spark the interest, but also create a following.

Children’s books, particularly fiction, have recently become some of the greatest top sellers. For this reason, authors and publishers are taking notice of this segment of readers. Character development is the main reason why young readers enjoy the books they read. This is certainly the reason why they continue to read a certain author’s work. The most popular characters are the ones that are not only intriguing, but also relatable.

Children enjoy reading about characters, which have similarities to themselves. The experiences may be totally different, but the emotions are understandable.

Whether you choose the traditional or self publishing path, you will need a good illustrator. With 30 illustrators on our team, we can help you properly illustrate your children’s book idea.

How to Design a Cover that Sells

Publishers have known for decades that book cover design can be instrumentally connected to sales. Professionally designed book covers draw the attention of potential readers. The visual appeal of a book makes it more likely to be purchased. One that is poorly designed will most often end up remaining on the shelf.

There are a number of ways to ensure that your book’s cover looks great. Traditional publishers rank this topic high in the publishing process. Their goal is to print books that will produce sales, which is why design is crucial. For this reason, most publishing companies have entire departments dedicated to the designing of book covers.

The design department doesn’t haphazardly choose a font.

The font style of titles and subtitles are chosen with direct purpose. They are not lazily chosen for individual book designs. Fonts are selected for two basic reasons. They are to demonstrate the forcefulness of the wording itself. If the title is bold and to the point, a font will be used that illustrates that feeling. Softer topics are shown through the use of more relaxed fonts and colors.

The other important consideration is the book’s subject matter. Books that focus on specific themes often have complimentary fonts. Lettering is used to accentuate the book’s overall subject.

Color also plays an important part in the process of font choice. The color of the letters has to match the rest of the cover’s design. Title and subtitle colors don’t have to be the same as the entire color, but it doesn’t usually clash. If the colors do clash, be sure that it wasn’t an accident. There was a marketing and strategic purpose for the choice.

Cover design takes the theme of the book and brings it to life.

It is common to see a book of a certain subject matter, displaying as much on its front cover. Books that focus on sailing will most likely have some form of a sailboat on the cover. The graphic designs of covers are used to complete an entire theme through the pictures that are used. How the cover is set helps later on in the marketing phase.

What will the book look like spine out from 3 to 6 feet away?

When someone is browsing through a section, they will be looking at your book spine out. Have it designed with that in mind. The title needs to be clearly legible on the spine.

Concerning the front, the title needs to catch the attention enough to get the potential buyer to read the subtitle or turn the book over to read the description and bio.

If you use a subtitle, which I highly recommend for non-fiction. It should clearly define what the book is about in 5 to 7 words.

The description on the back should have one powerful sentence at the top that entices the reader. The paragraph following should be 6 to 10 sentences that sells the book. I recommend an author bio at the bottom.

The title, cover design, and bio are important tools that assist in producing book sales. They are paramount to the whole marketing process. If any of these are poorly designed or placed, it could result in low sales.

Here is an example of a perfect cover design: All the Way Home

If you need help with cover design, call our office for a free consultation:

What’s the Big Deal about Book Covers?

The cover of your book will often make your first impression with readers. Everyone knows that first impressions are very important. They should be done to the best of the author’s ability. Thought and purpose must be given to cover design. Publishers have long known that a book’s cover is instrumental to the marketing process. In fact, if the cover of a book fails, so does the book.

Publishers value the investment which goes into the publishing process. For this reason, they pay strict detail to how their books’ covers look. The cover represents the author by and large. But it also relates to the publishing company that published it. No publisher wants to be known for poor quality. To ensure this doesn’t happen, entire departments are typically devoted to the production of professional appearing book covers.

Traditional publishing companies invest a significant amount for cover design.

As stated before, specific company departments are dedicated to cover design. Here we could have artists, as well as, graphic experts. Their purpose is to produce the best cover for your book that is possible. There are a number of considerations that go into the whole process.

Cover designers use pictures, graphics, and fonts with concerted effort. None of these cover components are done without a purpose. Each is placed and designed in order to yield the best profit. These departments focus on marketing and pride themselves on producing quality covers.

Self publishers must take cover design as seriously as traditional publishers.

Many companies that help authors self publish, have a cover design option. This option allows the author to pick through some standard templates for their cover design. I do not recommend template covers. You want your book to look as good as a New York Time Best Seller.

Prior to participating in this phase of publishing, an author should familiarize themselves with two things. He or she needs to understand basic marketing techniques. How does cover choice connect to the buyer? What colors are distracting? Study the covers of the top ten bestselling books in your genre.

This is important information. The author should also understand what message they are trying to communicate to the reader. The design of the cover will communicate something, whether positively or negatively. The most effective message an author should want to relay is that of their book’s theme. Covers shouldn’t be chosen because they are liked. They must be chosen for effectiveness as well.

Independent designers will happily produce the cover you want.

Some authors have a specific cover idea in mind, but need help bringing it to life. For this reason, there are many independent graphic design companies. These companies offer a variety of services, some of which include cover design. Working with this type of service doesn't have to be expensive. It may, however, be the best way to ensure that your idea is communicated through your book’s cover.

Designers work to make your idea a reality, and then send you a completed file. Sometimes these projects have to be worked on over time. They can take months in some cases. Once completed though, this file can be used to create the book cover you’ve always wanted.

How to Get Traditionally Published

I reserve the right to try to talk you out of this, but here's how it works.

Traditional publishing companies exist in various sizes and capabilities. Some of these publishing houses focus on specific types of books. Others work with authors of many different kinds of work. This often depends on the size of the company and the number of submissions they are able to accommodate during a given period of time.

There are some publishers which only work with authors of fiction, while others focus on nonfiction books. Depending on the writing projects you are looking to publish, keep this in mind. For instance, if you have a nonfiction manuscript, it many be best to seek publishers who work within your genre.

Looking at the sizes of publishing companies is a great way to determine if they offer what you are looking for. This type of information can only be determined fully by doing research on the differences of these companies. Each provides unique services and benefits for authors.

Authors are required to query publishers about their books. The majority of publishers out there today, do not accept unsolicited manuscript submissions. Some of them, however, will accept a query letter.

In your query, you will give basic information about both your book and yourself. Publishers looking for new work will sometimes respond to your query. They will either want to see some of your manuscript, or they will not.

If a publisher does want to see your work, this doesn’t mean you are going to be offered a publishing contract. This simply means that one to three chapters of your book will be reviewed as a possibility for their company. Both small and large publishers receive many queries and submissions per week. Keeping this in mind, any specific publisher may not respond to your query.

If you receive a response, it may be weeks or months coming. When considering a small publishing house, it is important to note that they generally have a small budget. This means that they probably would not offer you an advance for publishing your book. They may pay some of the expenses necessary to advertise a published manuscript.

Small publishers commonly do what is necessary to make your book available in bookstores. There will be a bulk of work on your part to present your work to the public. You will be expected to participate in book signings and other promotional activities.

Large publishing companies usually offer authors much more than smaller companies. They are able most often to pay higher royalties. The drawback they present is that they typically don’t work with first time authors, especially those without credible agents. Many first time authors look for agents to assist them in the submission process.

The most effective way to decide which type of publisher is best for you, will require further research into their differences. Don’t be afraid to try multiple avenues to present your work to the world. Patience and perseverance are the keys.

We are now offering a package to help you get started on this path. We will professionally write your query letter, copy edit the first 2 chapters of your book, develop a list of 25 key publishers or agents that would be a good fit, and send out and track your query letters. Price: $497

We can also help you self publish including editing, design, printing, distribution, and marketing with retention of 100% of the profit.

Call us for a free consultation.