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• INDEPENDENT 24 PR ES 20
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WHO CAN ENTER?
Print and audiobook can be submitted by: • Independent publishers • University presses • Association presses • Hybrid publishers • Self-published authors If you are a big five publishing house, you must submit your books to our fall competition, NYCBigBookAward.com, which has a separate committee and entry fee.
DEADLINE APPROACHING
Outside of the big five publishing houses, any publisher or author may submit to both competitions, IndependentPressAward.com (every spring); and NYCBigBookAward.com (every fall). See webpages for complete details.
WHEN CAN I ENTER the Independent Press Award? We are on a rolling submission, approximately every two and a half months, with two hard deadlines: (1) March 2024 to August 30, 2024; (2) September 1, 2024 to December 30, 2024 All entries must be received no later than December 30, 2024. This final deadline will not be extended. What if I miss the deadline? Enter our fall program NYCBigBookAward.com as we take books until August 30th.
STEP-BY-STEP INSTRUCTIONS Decide which books (copyright date within the past three years is recommended but not required) to enter into this year’s competition. 2 Calculate the total entry fee. Choose which categories, https://www.independentpressaward.com/categories, to enter each book into. You may enter a book into as many categories as you’d like. The fee for the first category is $125. Any additional book categories for that same book is $75 per category. • SINGLE BOOK, MULTIPLE CATEGORIES: One who enters “Book One” in Children’s Educational and Book Cover Design Childrens category, the entry fee is $125 + $75 = $200. 1
Educational and Book Cover Design Childrens category, the entry fee is $125 + $75 = $200, and “Book Two” in Mystery and New Fiction (first-time published), the entry fee is $125 + $75 = $200, so $200 + 200 = $400 in total book entry fees. 3 Download a form from this page, OR submit the entry form online on this page, https://www.independentpressaward.com/online-entry-form-1 4
Please submit two copies of your book for entry into two or more categories. For a single-category entry, one copy is sufficient. Audiobooks, a single copy of the completed Entry form (can use online form) must be submitted along with an Audible gift code. IF COMPLETING ENTRY FORM ONLINE and sending a book directly from Amazon.com or other retailer/printer, NO PAPERWORK IS REQUIRED to accompany the book(s). In addition, we are now accepting books digitally: Complete form, pay online and send your PDF or .epub to: Gabby@IndependentPressAward.com
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Pay via PayPal button on the website or mail a check, along with your books and ship to:
ENTRY FEE $125 per title/per category, plus $75 for any additional category
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INDEPENDENT PRESS AWARD 63 Clinton Road Glen Ridge, NJ 07028 USA www.nycbigbookaward.com
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Publisher’s Letter
As I sit in 74 degree weather, excited for the book fair this weekend, I have a moment to reflect as we go to press with this issue shortly. 2024 has been an amazing year for what we did for authors, and exhilarated for what’s to come. Off a successful BookCAMP, our next one is shaping up to be far better: more experts; more topics; and more actionable information. Never talking down, but connecting on what’s possible for independent publishers and authors. Here, we spend three days with industry experts, learning, sharing and networking. This year’s event will take place on May 2-4, 2025 at the DoubleTree by Hilton, located by the Newark International Airport on 128 Frontage Road. Take a closer look at what we are offering in the centerfold of this issue. Hope you join us, more details here: https://www.ipabookcamp.com/ We’ve executed inventive ways to gain attention from readers. From NYC Times Square billboards to traditional first-time exhibits at old and new trade shows. Selling books using proven market strategies and implementing innovative, cost-saving marketing solutions. We’re attacking book buying markets from a number of different angles to get results. In 2025, we have a number of additional initiatives that will help those authors shopping a manuscript to publishers and agents to be discovered, to those existing authors that want to be reached via television to sell their books. I look forward to more results! The holiday season is a time to focus on those you love, and those who want to be a part of your life’s success. In this spirit, I encourage you to think hard about all those who have supported you, and wished you well, and take action to buy them one of our award-winning books. Maybe you’ve been thinking about them, but not planning to gift them. Take action, and be rest assured that buying them a book will make a difference. Maybe they will read it, maybe they will regift it, but nonetheless, they know that you appreciate them, and you will be remembered. So, pick out a book from the pages ahead, and start opening doors and conversations, and reconnecting. Until next issue,
Ted Olczak Publisher
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TABLE of CONTENTS 3 4 6-7 13-15 16 17 18 27
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Call for entries for the Independent Press Award Newly featured author interviews on The GAB TALKS Publisher’s Letter GAB TALKS with Dr. Kimberly Harms author of Are You Ready?: How to Build a Legacy to Die For IPA BookCAMP 2025 Call for book submissions for the NYC Big Book Award More Holiday Books for the Season Independent Press Award 2024 award-winning books BookCAMP's Publishing Services Directory
No portion of this magazine may be reproduced without express permission from the publisher. The magazine Independent Press Award and NYC Big Book Award present is published eight times per year and has been issued the following ISSNs by the U.S. ISSN Center, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.: Format: Online Format: ISSN 2836-9157; and the Print Format: ISSN 2836-9149. Any questions or comments, please contact the Publisher Ted Olczak at Ted@GabbyBookAwards.com or Ted@PrintedWordReviews.com. All rights reserved. No part of this magazine may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by an information storage and retrieval system - except by a reviewer who provides us credit may quote brief passages in a review to be printed in a magazine or newspaper - without permission in writing from the publisher. To submit your book for review, send to: Printed Word Reviews, 63 Clinton Rd, Glen Ridge, NJ 07028. Allow 8 - 12 weeks. Unpaid reviews are not guaranteed. More details available on our website at www.printedwordreviews.com/
To submit your book, visit our websites: Spring 2025: Independent Press Award, www.independentpressaward.com/ Books must be received by December 30, 2024. Allows independent publishers and authors to participate. Self-publishers are welcomed. Fall 2025: NYC Big Book Award, www.nycbigbookaward.com/ Any publisher, including the Big Five Publishers to University Presses or any author anywhere is encouraged to submit. (More consumer focused; different judging) Books must be received by August 30, 2025. To advertise, please contact Ted@GabbyBookAwards.com, or visit our website, www.independentpressaward.com/advertise
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a. Four issues of BookCamp Magazine included at NO CHARGE with an annual membership. b. Small Press and Fall Trade Book Fairs? (AUGUST 2025 special supplement) c. other publishing professionals. d. Sign up now & receive an ADDITIONAL BONUSES as we add them throughout the year! (Outside of the United States /International digital magazine only). https://www.independentpressaward.com/membership
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Dr. Kimberly Harms Author: Are You Ready?: How to Build a Legacy to Die For
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r. Kimberly Harms author of Are You Ready?: How to Build a Legacy to Die For was named a Distinguished Favorite in the 2024 New York City Big Book Award in the Death & Dying category. Author Dr. Kimberly Harms is an international speaker with more than 30 years of dental, grief, conflict and transitional management experience.
A Commissioned Officer in the United States Public Health Service, a Clinical Assistant Professor at Loyola University Dental School, a grief counselor, three decades as a clinical dentist in private practice with her late husband Jim in Farmington MN, a death doula, a civil mediator, a school board Chair, President of an international women’s organization, the first woman President of the Minnesota Dental Association and co-founder of 65 Eric Harms Memorial Libraries through Books for Africa in Rowanda. Kimberley has suffered many personal losses including the suicide deaths of her mother and son and the death from a broken heart of her husband Jim. Kimberley’s most important role now is as a mother to her two surviving children and grandmother to six precious grandchildren. Kimberly joins us from Minnesota.
Gabby: Explain what you refer to as the fourth quarter of your life and how it inspired you to write Are You Ready: How To Build a Legacy to Die For. Kimberly: My husband Jim passed away four years ago. I just found myself in that transition between menopause and death. It’s kind of scary.
with everybody in your life. If you live with your legacy in mind, if you realize that every interaction you have is building a legacy with that person, especially when you’re interacting with family members, you live your life a little differently because it’s not about you anymore.
Gabby: Are You Ready? is written from a compassionate perspective, your personal story is poignant and heartbreaking. The death of your son Eric was certainly the most difficult to read about. Can you elaborate on your story?
Kimberly: I lost my mother to suicide when Legacy is about what you’re leaving for them. I was 17. I married my husband, Jim, when I My legacy to my children and my grandchil- was 19. We had a great life. We had a small I realized that we don’t have many work- dren is for them to know they are loved. town dental practice in Farmington, three books or educational books to help us get amazing children. Our youngest, Eric was through this fourth quarter of our lives. I Gabby: Your book is written in three parts. just brilliant. He was recruited by Columbia started researching. The information was In part one, you outline the various different University. He loved Columbia, because he fascinating and I wanted to put it all in a types of legacies. You refer to them as posi- could be in a jazz program and study engibook form. My purpose is to help people look tive affirmative endowments. Love, family, neering at the same time. He’d made the at this squarely in the face. It’s coming and resilience. mentorship. Is there one type of Dean’s list and had a great first semester. He we need to get our stuff in order and prepare legacy that you feel is the most enduring? went back in January and two weeks later our children emotionally so that when we his girlfriend broke up with him. Eric took pass away they are stronger and more resil- Kimberly: Of course, love is the big king of his own life within 45 minutes of the final ient. legacies. I only had my mother for six years, breakup with his girlfriend. yet I think that anything good that I have beGabby: What is the definition of legacy and come, I became because of her. She gave me Gabby: How did you rise to joy from what is it something tangible? so much love during those six years. She also you call the grief pit? gave me resilience. Kimberly: It’s every interaction you have
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Kimberly: It affected my children and my husband. I was going to make sure that my kids knew they were enough. I was going to fight, kick, scream, and claw my way out of that pit because my grief just didn’t affect me alone. My message to everyone through the book is no matter what happens to you, take the effort to fight that grief. It’s a horrible place to live. So much better to live in joy. Gabby: Along your journey from dentist to grief counselor you saw that there were a lot of things that needed to be done. The Death Preppers workbook is part three in the book. It’s an invaluable tool designed to empower the readers, to prepare for the inevitable and to leave our loved ones with a legacy, not a mess. Can you explain what an emotional insurance policy is? Kimberly: We need to prepare our children emotionally for a time when we die. I spent a lot of time in that darn grief pit. I don’t want them at the bottom like I was. I would like to prepare them so that they understand that death is part of life and that my life was so enriched because of them. I want them to understand how much I love them, and to know that I want them to have a happy life.
DISTINGUISHED
FAVORITE
D E AT H & D Y I N G
Listen to the entire interview on www.thegabtalks.com To learn more about Dr. Kimberly Harms and to purchase Are You Ready?: How to Build a Legacy to Die For please visit www.drkimberlyharms.com
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