It’s an honour just to be nominated!

BIG NEWS!

American Book Fest has released the names and titles for the 2020 International Book Awards and The Perpetual Now was named as a finalist in the Cross Genre category!

As my young protagonist Justin Lambert would say: “HOLYSHITHOLYSHITHOLYSHIT!!!”

According to the press release “over 400 winners and finalists were announced in over 90 categories.” Jeffrey Keen, President and CEO of American Book Fest, said this year’s contest yielded over 2,000 entries from authors and publishers around the world, which were then narrowed down to the final results.

Keen says of the awards, “The 2020 results represent a phenomenal mix of books from a wide array of publishers throughout the world. With a full publicity and marketing campaign promoting the results of IBA, this year’s winners and finalists will gain additional media coverage for the second half of 2020.”

Keen adds, “IBA’s success begins with the enthusiastic participation of authors and publishers and continues with our distinguished panel of industry judges who bring to the table their extensive editorial, PR, marketing, and design expertise.”

At this point, I’m happy to say “Mission Accomplished”, and anything that comes after is gravy!

You see, the most exciting aspect for me in all this isn’t so much the potential impact on book sales (although it’s crossed my mind), or even the fact that the likes of Simon & Schuster, HarperCollins, or Penguin Random House will be watching closely. Rather, it’s the unexpected honour of being included in the company of so many talented, successful and acclaimed authors in both mainstream and independent publishing, and the satisfaction of being acknowledged by established publishing professionals, individuals whose job it is to recognize excellence in writing. This is a huge leap forward and more than I could have dreamed of when I first set out… at least not before I had a few more books under my belt.

Not bad for someone who prior to this hadn’t published so much as a quiche recipe, huh?

[UPDATE: The winners have been announced and while I didn’t take the final prize, I remain delighted and honoured at having been short-listed! My congratulations to all the winners and thanks again to the selection committee!]