What's the bzz?

I recently entered two books in the Prize Writer competition hosted by bookbzz.com. (Not Book Buzz--that's different.) I put The Time Travel Trailer in the science fiction category and Peete and Repeat in the mysteries. Yesterday morning I was notified that each made the short list (ten books per category). This is really exciting for me. There is actually some prize money for the category winners but more important to me is that it gives credibility to my books. The self-publishing world is very competitive and unfortunately, there's a lot of stuff in print or digital not worth the reader's time or money. So this kind of recognition helps overcome the reader's bias. I hope.

I'm not sure how I feel about the final elimination, though. Instead of the books being judged by reviewers as they were in the first round, they are voted on by the public on the website during February. Therefore, it behooves the writer to badger one's friends and relatives to go to the website and vote.

Since the best things in life are free, Bats and Bones is optimistically currently in that category on iBooks and Barnes and Noble as well as Amazon. And The Lady of the Lake will be free this Friday and Saturday on Amazon only.

On another note, we made our first camping reservation of the year this week in Wisconsin in May. And we are still mulling over the possibility of a trip south sometime in February. Meanwhile, numerous projects are calling.

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