May 2004 Archives

OK... I know that technically this doesn't mean that I won... but I was selected as one of two finalists for the Fantasy/Sci-Fi category of the 2004 Independent Publisher Book Awards! I am now an almost-winner. A runner-up, if you will. A second or third place (not sure which) contestant, so to speak.

This is a huge honor, as the IPPY's attract the serious indie authors... those who are really trying to break out of the label of "vanity publishers" into something that is taken more seriously.

The award ceremony is on the weekend of June 4-6 at the World Book Expo in Chicago.

Here's a note to all of you comment-spammers out there. It's bad enough that you are comment-spamming people, and making a cesspool out of the blogging communities, without forcing us to read your crap fortune-cookie advice while you do it. Here's some recent winners:

"The Meaning of Life is that it Ends"
...and...
"The Long Road Leads to Fortune"

Really? If the long road leads to fortune, why don't the slime-balls who resort to spamming take their own advice and earn a living the hard way??? In regards to the end of life... that's just too easy so I won't even go there.

Anyway, I'm being forced to upgrade Moveable Type to version 3.0 and institute registration-based comments... it's a pain for everyone, I know, but I just can't spend the time to keep sifting through and deleting all this spam. Expect the upgrade within a week or so.

The Independent Publisher Awards (the "IPPY's") are in the final stages of judging, and the results will be announced on Friday. My book Out of Place Out of Time is under consideration... and I haven't felt this nervous in a long time. It's interesting to note that while I'm on the record as not caring much about awards and recognition, I've suddenly realized that my palms are sweating, and that this award would mean an awful lot to me. I mean, yeah... I'm in this for the art of it, not to make money or become the next [insert name of sell-out author here]. But just one little award wouldn't hurt, would it? And if one little award is OK, then why not one of the most influential awards in the independent publishing community? I mean, it's the logical next step!

Oh wait, there go those delusions of grandeur again! To put things in perspective, there are 2,067 competing titles, spread out over 55 categories. Assuming an even distribution of categories (unlikely), that's 37.58 competing titles. There is one winner and two finalists per category, narrowing the playing field considerably.

As you can see, I'm obsessing about this.

:-)

I've now had to block six IP's due to comment spamming. Now, when you consider that these spammers are probably using public address spaces provided by AOL, MSN etc... I've probably limited a lot of honest commenters from posting their legitimate opinions and criticisms.

The Psycho Sensei said it best in this lovely post. I couldn't have said it better. I haven't resorted to turning off comments yet, but I'm getting there.