Here's another great writing contest to enter, named in honour of one of my all time favourite writers, John Steinbeck. Reed Magazine runs the John Steinbeck Short Story Award annually. Here's the link:

http://www.reedmag.org/#!submit/c13ag

It is one of three prizes offered by Reed Magazine. This award is for a work of fiction up to 5000 words. The winner of the John Steinbeck Short Story Award receives a cash prize of US$1000 and all entries are considered for publication. Reading fee per story is $15.00. Entries close 1 November. Be sure to read the submission guidelines and follow them to the letter. This is a long-established literary magazine, so only your very best writing samples will do.

Still narrowing down the writing contests I might like to enter in 2016 and found one that should tickle the fancy of all you science fiction writers out there: The H G Wells Short Story Writing Competition!

http://hgwellscompetition.com/

The contest is for stories between 1,500 and 5,000 words. The 2016 competition theme is space. The shortlisted stories will be published in an anthology. There are prizes in three different categories including £1000 (US$1500) for the best story by a writer aged 21 or under. Entries close 17 July 2016.

Good luck to all Bookrix writers entering that one!

The last few days of the old year have arrived, time to take stock and make plans for next year's ebook promotion efforts. Here's another link to a site that looks promising and doesn't cost the earth:

http://freeboostmarketing.com/
only $5.99 one time fee to sign up

Here's what they offer:

"Authors will get their ebooks and author profile featured on our website and then promoted via our Twitter account. We will send out tweets throughout the week promoting your listing.

Please include the following for your ebook listing:
1. Name of eBook
2. Image
3. Links to where your ebook is available for purchase.
4. Book Description
5. Author Image (paid package only)
6. Author Bio (paid package only)
7. Free Sample Chapter (paid package only)

Please submit the form below to get your e-book listed and your author profile set up! If you are submitting a free Kindle promotion please mention that in the submission."

For authors with a free Kindle promotion there are numerous sites, but for authors who don't see the point in continuously giving away free stuff to freeloaders who have no intentions of EVER paying for a book, there are far fewer sites around. At least this one gives a choice.

Hope you are all having a spiffing Christmas!

Here's an update of the final result for my Copromote boost for my kids' book "Linus & The Leprechauns" . My original Tweet was passed on by 85 CoPromoters, which gave my Tweet an 8,500% boost, meaning it was retweeted to 187,817 followers on Twitter. In addition, I bagged more than 100 Twitter followers, quite a few Wordpress followers and also got "liked" loads of times. Most of the copromoters, whose own promotional Tweets I had retweeted via my own network of Twitter followers either thanked me, "liked" the Tweet or retweeted it again, giving me additional exposure. It's been amazing, so I can honestly say, this is one medium that really, really works with regard to creating a bit of buzz for your book/product.

Copromote.com is free to join and free to use. Paid packages start at $49.99 per month for unlimited boosts.

Merry Christmas Everybody! Frohe Weihnachten an alle Bookrix Leser und Autoren!

Here's hoping that my Santa wish-list will get fulfilled at last: peace, health and happiness for everyone on Earth, including animals.

Have a great winter break, if you don't celebrate Christmas.

Many virtual hugs
Maria

In my quest to find affordable promotion for my books I came across Booktalk.org, where it is possible to get FREE promotion by joining a forum and introducing oneself as an author and the books one wishes to promote. There's also a paid-for advertising option:

http://www.booktalk.org/advertise.html

Although the $30 permanent banner doesn't allow a link to Amazon or other ebook sellers, it still seems a good deal, given the site has such a large regular readership and has been around for quite a long time.

Another good and entirely free promotional site is Bookhitch:
http://www.bookhitch.com/addbook.aspx

where authors can list their book/s for sale with a website link. A paid for option allows even more detail and costs just $19.95, which gives you 120 words of book blurb and an author bio in addition to what you are permitted to upload for free.

Here's a little Copromote update for my kids' ebook Linus & The Leprechauns, which I'll shortly be putting out as a print version as well. Since 11th December, when I sent out my promo Tweet, 78 copromoters have retweeted my message, giving me a 7,800% boost and a Twitter follower reach of just over 152,000. A few more days to go until the 14-day promotion is over. I'd have had an even better result, had I not constantly run out of "credits" with the free of charge Copromote version.

Here's another literary magazine that accepts submissions - be warned, this is a heavy weight among the lit mags, so only top-notch writers need apply:

"The Wrong Quarterly, http://www.thewrongquarterly.com

is a London-based literary magazine showcasing prose from both British and international writers. Its aim is to provide an inclusive platform for emerging writers worldwide. We accept fiction of under 6,000 words, fully edited, and previously unpublished. We also accept non-fiction, life-writing, and essays of under 5,000 words.
All submissions should be sent to editors@thewrongquarterly.com

We are thrilled with and inspired by the volume of creative effort which drops into our inboxes daily, but sadly we cannot respond directly to writers whose work we choose not to include."

What are literary magazines - and writing contest judges for that matter - look for when they get submissions? Have a look at what Areogrammestudio has to say on the matter - it's a great resource/guideline and tallies with what I have seen on other magazines' sites

http://www.aerogrammestudio.com/2015/09/15/what-we-look-for-in-unsolicited-submissions/

Their submission guidelines were drawn up with reference to an article Stephen King wrote for The Writer's Handbook in 1988 and The Writer magazine in 1986 - and if THAT bestselling author doesn't know what publishable writing should be all about, nobody does!

The very best writers manage to conjure up a "film" before our mind's eye, as vivid in pictures, sounds, characters and emotions as any Hollywood blockbuster. If you've ever wondered what your short story or novel would look like on screen, submit to Wild Sound to find out:

http://www.wildsound.ca/audio_video_book.html

"SUBMIT your story (both your 1st chapter, short story, or full novel accepted)
And we'll make it into a movie.
All entries will have their story performed by a professional voice over artist. And edited by a professional editor!
Submissions take 5-7 weeks to be created

Quotes vary on the length of each story or novel. We can also make a movie out of transcripts from a particular novel. In the voice over work, which we do first, it generally takes about 1 minute per 100 words to perform. So for example a 5000 word story will be around 50 minutes in length (give or take around 5-10 minutes), which will cost around $400 to have done. But every story is different and we will to a preliminary check on it and quote you.

What we'll do is either post your Audio/Video book on our YouTube channel and get you 1000s of hits (guaranteed within 30 days when it's posted), or we can post it on your own present or newly created channel. Bottomline, we will help promote your video and book and make sure it's seen by the right people. "

Wild Sound run a Wordpress blog on which they often showcase some of the award-winning videos they have produced from writers' works like yours or mine. Fabulous stuff and well worth the $400. Unless you happen to be friends with a bunch of good actors or animators, you simply couldn't produce the same quality at home on that budget.

Have fun, if you're going for it and let us know, so we can look out for it on Wordpress!

After a full week's worth of promotional efforts, my original Tweet for "Linus & the Leprechauns" has been retweeted by 62 copromoters, giving me more than 6000% of additional boost = meaning my Tweet went out to just under 119,000 Twitter followers. Another week to go for Linus and his leprechaun friends! This is the most exciting promotion I've ever done and I've managed to bag quite a few followers on Twitter, Wordpress and Copromote itself because of it. Will update you again middle next week.

Here's another writing contest for next year that looks worth while entering: http://bathshortstoryaward.co.uk

Bath Short Story Award
is open to stories up to 2200 words in length. Stories may be in any genre and entries from both published and unpublished writers are encouraged. First Prize is £1000 (US$1500) and a selection of twenty winning, shortlisted and longlisted stories will be published in a print and digital anthology. Entries close on 25 April 2016, now open for online submissions, £8.00 fee per story.