Celebrating Independent Authors
We are pleased to announce that RJ Crayton, author of Life First and Second Life, is joining the staff of Indies Unlimited as a monthly contributor.
RJ is a former journalist who has worked at the Wichita Eagle and the Kansas City Star. She writes dystopian thrillers with a touch of romance. To learn more about her or her books, visit her website or her Author Central page.
Please join us in welcoming RJ Crayton to the Indies Unlimited team.
Voting for the Indies Unlimited Excellence Awards has concluded. We’d like to thank everyone for vigorous participation. The votes constitute an important part of the process, but do not exclusively determine the winner. To balance the votes and prevent the awards from becoming an outright “popularity contest,” we used the Alexa rankings of the finalists in the final calculation. Alexa is is the leading web traffic ranking service, and we regard it as an impartial standard.
The total votes received by each finalist by the close of the polls was divided by each candidate’s Alexa ranking. The rankings used were those recorded for each site on the morning of February 6, 2014.
This methodology was chosen for several reasons. First, while it gives significant weight to the Alexa ranking, it does not allow a site (even with an excellent rating) to win without getting votes. Second, of the various methodologies we tested on dummy data, this was the only one that did not produce ties. It also removes any potential elements of favoritism.
Both the winners and the finalists exemplify the very spirit of the indie community. We are pleased to present the recipients of the 2013 Indies Unlimited Excellence Awards.
Five more titles for February!
True Colors by Melissa Pearl
A sweet romance with a sinister twist. What if you could suddenly see behind people’s masks? Dark secrets carry dangerous consequences.
True Colors (The Mask Series #1) is available through Amazon.com, Smashwords, and Amazon UK.
The Purple Girl by Audrey Kane
This adventure book for young readers highlights the life of Violet, a purple-skinned girl whose purple spreads to everything she touches…
The Purple Girl is available through Amazon.com and Amazon UK.
Burning Through by Melissa Bowersock
When a woman discovers she shares her Victorian home with a fire-setting ghost, she and a sympathetic fire captain work to unravel the mystery.
Burning Through is available at Amazon.com and Amazon UK.
– – – –
500 Miles to Go by J. Conrad Guest
A love story that touches four decades, 500 Miles to Go is about the importance of, and the risks associated with, the pursuit of dreams.
500 Miles to Go is available at Amazon.com, Smashwords, and Amazon UK.
The Day We Said Goodbye by Ken La Salle
What do you do when your father is losing his life just as you are losing your mind? The Day We Said Goodbye – available in eBook and audio.
The Day We Said Goodbye is available at Amazon.com and Amazon UK.
Last year, we ran a guest post from Lorraine Sears, Managing Editor of The Oddville Press.
Lorraine was facing the task of re-launching an eZine that had enjoyed 400,000 downloads in its first life.
She wanted to reach out to writers to make them aware of the opportunities presented by having work published in a well-crafted online publication.
Lorraine contacted me to let me know The Oddville Press is now live. She included a nice hat-tip to Indies Unlimited and thanked us for our assistance in connecting her with some talented writers:
“After our article was published on your site submissions went through the roof.”
In this edition, you’ll see a short story contribution from IU stalwart, Shaun McLaughlin. We encourage you to check it out.
Most of us have a few short stories lying around collecting dust. Maybe they just don’t fit in anywhere within the bodies of our existing work, or maybe we were saving them for an anthology that got put on the back burner. Publications like The Oddville Press present an interesting way to introduce yourself to new readers and to build your portfolio.
You can download your copy here. If you are interested in submitting a short story to the Oddville press, you can find submissions information here.