Winning a Prize and Saying Thank You

You may or may not have seen that Goodreads and the American Association of Publishers announced the four winners of the first annual Independent Book Blogger Awards this afternoon… and I’m one of the winners!

What? I know, it’s crazy.

Backing up… In April, book bloggers were invited to submit their blogs to the contest in one of four categories: Adult Fiction, Adult Nonfiction, Young Adult & Children’s, and Publishing Industry. There was a round of popular voting, after which 15 finalists were judged by “a committee of industry representatives” to determine the winner. I took a little while to pick some favorite posts to submit, but ended up going with these five:

• Review: ‘Methland’ by Nick Reding
• Adjusting My Thoughts on Essay Expectations
• A Supposedly Funny Author I Might Try Reading Again
• ‘Here Is a Human Being’ by Misha Angrist
• Review: ‘Big Girls Don’t Cry’ by Rebecca Traister

After I picked those posts and submitted my name, I basically forgot about the contest because I never thought I had a chance of winning. On Monday afternoon I got a wake-up call in the form of an e-mail from AAP asking me to call them about news on my entry to the contest. After a short bit of phone tag, I found out that I was winner in the adult nonfiction category. Holy cow!

But… I had to keep it a secret! So all of this week I’ve had to silently “Squee!” to myself and a couple of confidants (you ladies know who you are!) as the details about the prize (a trip to Book Expo America!!) got worked out and we got the thumbs up to say something today when the press release was posted.

A totally awesome but also unintentionally hilarious part of today, with all the press releases and whatnot, is that AAP sent me a second version of the announcement tailored specifically to me that can be used to send to my local media about the award. Except since I’m the editor of my local newspaper, I am the local media (and, therefore, not really able to put a story in my newspaper about me that announces “Morris Journalist Chosen as One of Four National Winners of Publishing Industry’s Independent Book Blogger Awards”). That just made me laugh.

Anyway, I’m totally flabbergasted and honored and humbled to have won this award. To even have made it past the first round of voting is amazing to me, since even though I’ve been blogging for four years I still feel like small potatoes a lot of the time. So thank you, so very much to anyone who voted for me — I’m so grateful and surprised and happy to be recognized.

I’d also like to recognize the other awesome finalists in the nonfiction category, some that I know and some that are totally new to me: The Girl from the Ghetto; Jeannie Walker – Award Winning True Crime Author; The Parchment Girl; Reading, Writing, Working, Playing; Misfit Salon; At Home With Books; A Novel Affair; Scandalous Women; The Feminist Texican [Reads]; The Dunce Academy;World War ll London Blitz Diaries 1939-1945; The Well-read Naturalist; Janet Boyer Reviews; Notes From The Parsonage.

And, of course, the other winners in their categories:

• Insatiable Booksluts - Adult Fiction
• Nerdy Book Club - Young Adult & Children’s
• Writer Beware Blogs - Publishing Industry

Nice job all, and I can’t wait to meet you at BEA!

So, finally, thank you, thank you, thank you. This is just so very cool, I don’t even really have words.

Tagged as: amaze-balls, American Association of Publishers, award, Goodreads, nonfiction, personal