Susan Friedmann [00:00:00]:
Welcome to Book Marketing Mentors, the weekly podcast where you learn proven strategies, tools, ideas and tips from the masters. Every week I introduce you to a marketing master who will share their expertise to help you market and sell more books. Today, my special guest is Carol Abramson. Carol is one of the top experts on awards for English language books. A former McGraw Hill executive, she's written 42 books, won a remarkable number of awards, and served as a judge for major book award competitions since the 1980s. Her books have made her an industry leader in four fields. As founder of executive Authors, she's helped hundreds of executives structure and leverage their books for real business growth, making her one of the top experts who on both book strategy and awards. Carol, it's an absolute pleasure to welcome you to the show and thank you for being this week's guest expert and mentor.
Carol Abrahamson [00:01:06]:
Susan, I'm thrilled to be here. Thank you for having me as your guest.
Susan Friedmann [00:01:10]:
Well, we've wanted to do this a long time ago and somehow we never got to it, but now we're doing it. And I will say that I think this is the very first time I that I've ever discussed book awards as a whole episode for the show. So I'm really excited to do that. And who better to have do it than someone with such vast knowledge of the field and of course, the success rate that you've had. Let's start off with just a very general question, and that is, why do book awards matter? What's the real value of for an author beyond, let's say, the trophy or the sticker?
Carol Abrahamson [00:01:54]:
Well, book awards offer all the benefits of bestseller status and a bunch more. But the bestseller status is a great frame to use for this. But there are more than just the recognition and differentiation that are similar to what bestsellers get. In addition, there are sometimes cash awards, literally, sometimes there are promotional opportunities, doors that open that are specific to book award winners because the people who offer those opportunities for visibility are specifically looking for book award winners to invite into their world. And then, of course, literary agents and traditional publishers who might be interested in pitching you on doing a second book if you've done your first book yourself. If they're impressed with your award and they're impressed with your book, you, those doors might open as well. I think of it as bestseller status, but on steroids. And it's more prestigious than bestseller.
Carol Abrahamson [00:02:51]:
It's not only more doors opening, more different kinds of doors opening, but overall it is more prestigious because there are millions fewer book award winners than there are bestsellers. Think about it there are 10,000 book awards given every year, and an author's main job is to decide which are the wrong ones to focus on and which are the right ones to focus on and to apply for.
Susan Friedmann [00:03:16]:
Well, that's a great segue into that. Talk to us more about which are the right ones. Because if there are so many awards out there, whether they're national, international, local, niche, whatever arena, how do we know which ones are the right ones to go for? Or what's the mindset, the decision making process?
Carol Abrahamson [00:03:39]:
Yeah, it requires research and it just requires combing through those webpages to see from the mission on down. You know, awards typically have purposes or missions. Well, you probably want to be aligned with that in order to shorten your list of ones you go after. Some of those mission statements are very narrow in scope, others are broader. A very common one, of course, is recognizing authors of excellent books. And you see that very, very often. But there are a bunch of narrow ones that not everybody will want to sign up for. And then you've got the character or the timing and just how the cycle of the award goes.
Carol Abrahamson [00:04:18]:
Is it a continuous award, a quarterly, an annual, and which meets your goals and what you're planning to do with your book and how your book will improve whatever you're looking your book to generate for you? Sometimes many authors, 70 authors postpone their book launch until they know if they can launch as an award winning author with an award winning book. That's what I did with my last batch of awards after Covid. I was doing new editions and I postponed all the launches for all five titles because I wanted to go for some awards. So your timing can matter depending on what's going on in your world and especially the world of your book. And then to look at past winners and be aware of what company you would be in if you were a winner. That's a key thing that a lot of authors don't research and look carefully at. Ten years, for instance, of past winners in the couple of categories you might be thinking most interestedly about, because you may or may not recognize those authors in your genre in the best winters, you may not like the quality of their covers and say, oh, I don't want to be in this crowd, this isn't for me. I would say timing, budget, past winners are key things that an author should be researching and have in mind as they comb through those web pages of each of the programs that they may be thinking of.
Carol Abrahamson [00:05:38]:
There are 400 programs that give the 10,000 awards in a year. That's 400 sets of webpages. And if you're in a common genre like children's books, every one of them has categories for you. And so it's a matter of using a research help such as my services to help you cut through and eliminate having to do that manual research. Or look at some short lists at Google where they list of 10 Best Book Awards, 25 Best Book Awards. They're all over Google and in my view they're so generic that they're kind of useless because they don't reflect things specific to an author and their book and their goals. But they could be a starting point for you to kick off your research. The research is definitely the key, just careful reading of everything you see about the award.
Susan Friedmann [00:06:23]:
Yeah, and I'm pleased you mentioned that. Obviously that's something that you do and you coach authors on. Because I was going to ask, is there like a directory that you can go to? Because as you say, and I've done this, what are the topics awards? And ask Google or Chat or one of the platforms to find out what are the best ones out there. And they come up with the same ones. But obviously based on what you're saying, there are many more beyond that and maybe a genre specific. Is there some kind of directory?
Carol Abrahamson [00:06:58]:
Not that I've ever seen. And I have built my database of 10,000 awards given every year and it's taken me a decade of doing that. I used to be a book coach 20 years ago when I first started executive authors and that's when I started thinking about this area. But I didn't get serious about the database building and scouting for the awards. And you see the list of the top ones change from year to year or decade to decade. Someone's past winner will hit big and have a Harry Potter esque success at the store, at the cash register. And suddenly all the book awards that that book won are elevated in stat. They all discovered that book and started publicizing it early in its day or change in management.
Carol Abrahamson [00:07:40]:
And we've seen a lot of management changes in the last few decades with people moving on or selling the business that gives the awards. Individuals are promoted up into the leader and suddenly have a completely different thought about how they want their book awards business to compete in the book awards space. And they may start changing rules to start changing their judging system, even change some of the players who are the judges. And of course judges come and judges go, which also affects the quality of awards overall. I would say though, to be terribly fixated on whose Award you win is maybe not the place to put your energy. Because in truth, I've been a book award winner for years and years. I don't believe anyone's ever asked me what awards did I win. I have them published on my website.
Carol Abrahamson [00:08:26]:
I have them posted on a website page, the post Covid recent batch, because those books are still in print, but nobody asks. And I'm not sure the people who ask would even know how to evaluate any name you would give them unless it happened to be a name that they had once heard about somewhere before. Publishing insiders, of course, know the book PR firms, the publishers, they have their sense and we all are kind of tracked together where changes are being made, hiring moves, management changes that look like they're affecting the process, the judging process, or the rules and requirements of that particular awards program. It is a very dynamic system to stay on top of because there have been some massive changes in the last 10 years with awards either winning favor or not winning favor or losing favor, I should say within the industry.
Susan Friedmann [00:09:15]:
Oh, I'm learning so much here. Little did I know about book awards that it extended to this as big as it is, is there an optimum number that you should be or you could apply for at any one time or you would recommend applying in any one time?
Carol Abrahamson [00:09:33]:
It's all about budget and how this fits into your marketing budget and marketing plan. Being an award winner supercharges a lot of the other marketing activities you will do. So in my view, it's worth putting extra dollars into it because of how it can enhance every move you make. Because every time you say your name for the rest of your life you'll be able to say award winning author or multiple award winning author to all kinds of audiences in all kinds of frames and formats.
Susan Friedmann [00:10:00]:
Yeah, talking about budget, I know that having had authors who have applied for several awards, it can start getting a little pricey. So is there sort of a ballpark of what people can expect to pay for investing in applying for an award?
Carol Abrahamson [00:10:21]:
The average application these days or submission fee dance is around $100 plus or minus 20 bucks. Either way, I would say by far 80%, maybe of the 10,000 awards I've got fall in that range of 80 to 120. There's early bird specials here and there. There are second categories from a program that you might put your book into to try to go for a couple of awards from that program simultaneously in the same year. And you might get a discount of 10, 15, $20 on your second category. But I just generally consider $100 a pop, but that can be stretched out over time. It doesn't have to all be at once. I've talked to several authors over the years who stretch their award applications over two or even three years because so many of the awards are agnostic as to what your publication date is.
Carol Abrahamson [00:11:13]:
Your book does not have to be fresh, new, newly published. 2000 of my 10,000 awards in my database are totally agnostic to publication date, which means a book 10 or 20 or 30 years old is just as welcome and has equal chances as last year's book in the same category. An author does not have to pile all that budget expense into one small little space in time if it's easier to stretch it out.
Susan Friedmann [00:11:41]:
And that was music to my ears hearing that, because as you know, you and I talked about this prior to coming on the air, is that, you know, I had a client who had this gorgeous book that we felt would win a ton of awards and it didn't. And we then thought that or found out or thought that it was publication dependent and now you're saying no, that that's not the case. Hey, going to definitely introduce you to her or her to you so that she can go after a book award because she definitely deserves it for this book.
Carol Abrahamson [00:12:19]:
And Susan, I will say too, I've met some authors who seem to collect book awards the way they collect, I don't know, caps on beer bottles maybe. I don't know what the right comparison is, but they've gotten 40, 50 awards for their book and they just continue to go through the cycle over and over again. I'm not quite sure what they're trying to accomplish because the opportunity to list all of them is really only present on an Amazon sales page in the description section if you want to use your description section space for something like that. Because truly, once you've gotten a couple and can say multi award winning, in my view, that does the job in terms of the marketing momentum for the book as well as the status for the author for the rest of the author's life.
Susan Friedmann [00:13:02]:
It just made me think of people who get degree after degree after degree. Okay, you've got so many degrees. Yeah. Any event, let's talk about the role that awards play in book marketing, how an author can use their award to sell more books and then get that visibility. Talk to us about that.
Carol Abrahamson [00:13:24]:
And that goes back to the point I mentioned a few minutes ago that mentioning that you are award winning every place and every way that your name appears from the signature on all your emails to your outgoing voicemail greeting. Especially if you have a business that's related to your book's topic there, it's particularly appropriate to have your voicemail greeting to introduce yourself as a word reading author Sue Jones in terms of just spreading the word and people's awareness, that is a long term project that you can gain benefits from in the short term. Following a win, there are methods like being sure your local press, your local chamber of commerce know about your win by issuing your own press release. Most of the awarding programs issue a press release that identifies all their winners, but if you wanted to just take center stage on a press release, you could certainly do your own very affordably. And also be sure that you might want to do some articles or blog posts about a day in the life of an award winning author or what it was like on the way to becoming an award winning author or some other titles that can catch people's interest not only about your award, but also you and your book. It really does depend on what the goals are for your book. Are you building a business with it? Are you trying to become an industry leader by having your expertise elevated and thoroughly recognized? Are you trying to sell books by the truckload, by the carload, through bulk sales? In all of those cases, just adding the concept of award winning book award winning author to all of your materials will, as I said before, supercharge those tactics and will differentiate you from the pack. Since There are only 10,000 awards given in a year compared to bestseller status, for instance, Amazon has 16,000 categories.
Carol Abrahamson [00:15:18]:
That means 16,000 categories every hour. List a number one bestseller because Amazon does it hourly 24 hours a day. 16,000 times 24,000. That's how many Amazon number ones are being made. Book awards are so much rarer with only 10,000 a year. Amazon bestsellers, there are millions of them living today in all corners of the world. But it would take 100 years at 10,000 a year for book award winners to tally a million.
Susan Friedmann [00:15:51]:
I love that comparison. Carol, Is there a myth about book awards? Something that you hear or know that authors believe that simply isn't true?
Carol Abrahamson [00:16:04]:
When I first got into this field, I started hearing that authors thought that all they had to do is write their book and it would get discovered and it would get an award for those authors who had heard people being introduced on television or radio or elsewhere as award winning authors and they knew that there were awards for authors. They just thought it just sort of happens magically. And I continue to hear and meet legions of authors who have no sense that a book award is something you have to apply for in order to get. Except for the Nobel Prize for Literature, that's the one exception. So we'll put that aside for the moment because only one person gets that in a year plus whether they get a half a million dollars or million dollar prize with it. But even The Pulitzer is $75 to apply to be a Pulitzer Book Award winner. A lot of people think the Pulitzer is also one of those gifted ones. But no, you apply for them or your publisher applies for you on your behalf.
Carol Abrahamson [00:16:59]:
Book awards are like the rest of book marketing. It's a pay to play world. If you don't pay Amazon for the advertisement, you're not going to get an Amazon ad. And if you don't pay Facebook for the advertisement, book marketing is pay for play the same way most marketing is for most products in the world. And book awards is definitely part of that. There is the pay to play element of it that many, many authors just have no idea how much control and influence they have over by their application strategy and how willing they might be to try to pursue awards through a couple of different cycles, couple different years, maybe with their book that they have a lot of control. But it is a pay to play world. This is not gifts from heaven kind of stuff.
Susan Friedmann [00:17:45]:
Yes, yes. I mean unfortunately many authors think that marketing works the same way, that they just have to publish the book and it's going to be discover and become a bestseller and like you said, or win awards. Let's talk about some advice that you would give an author that are going after their first award competition. Are there sort of a couple of key things that they need to keep in mind?
Carol Abrahamson [00:18:12]:
Well, the main things I've touched on briefly I want to return to definitely be clear about your timing preferences, timing on submitting your award. The structure of an award cycle, just to give you context, is there's a period where an award giving program will announce their open window for submissions. It may be a 30 day open window, it may be a 6 month open window where they will take in applications and books and then the window closes and the judging process then is all that happens. Some judging happens while the submission window is open. Many programs start the judging right away to just start processing books as soon as they start coming in, they assign them to judges and judging starts happening while that submission window is open. But to be clear about what's the right submission window for you, your book, your goals, when will you have a final file ready to go? Is this project of getting A book award related to your launch timing in some way and so needs to be coordinated or sequenced for maximum impact for you. And then at the back end, so it's the submission window and then the judging process happens. After the submission window closes, judging gets completed and it's winner announcement day, which is a specific point in time when the winners are posted on typically a webpage.
Carol Abrahamson [00:19:36]:
These days your timing on that announcement might also matter vis a vis the other things you've got going. Events, travel, maybe you've got an in person conference that you're hosting coming up. Yet you want to be free to make the most of your announcement wins should they come. So you may want to schedule or choose awards that fit your book marketing goals and your business goals and whatever else you're doing in life on the announcement side so that you're available with time and energy to make the most of any wins that you get. Timing is key. And being clear about your timing as you choose which awards are the wrong ones and which are the right ones to consider. And of course your budget. There are some awards that are over $300 to apply for versus the hundred dollar norm that I mentioned earlier.
Carol Abrahamson [00:20:27]:
There are also some awards that are only $50, depending on what your strategy is on how many you like to go for. Obviously your budget stretches further over less expensive awards. If you really are interested in applying for a handful, maybe five, six, seven at your first go to kind of throw all those wildflower seeds up into the air and see what you get. Well, I would say those are the main considerations as well of the match to the tone the past winners. The mission is obviously certainly important as well and to take the time to make those considerations and do the research or use a service like ours to cut through some of that research work for you. But it needs to be done.
Susan Friedmann [00:21:13]:
This is a great segue, Carol, for you to tell our listeners about your services and how they could get in touch with you. Because I'm sure that there are listeners chomping at the bit wanting to know how they can apply for awards.
Carol Abrahamson [00:21:28]:
Well, my service is called Book Award Mastery. That's also the website name bookawardmastery.com and it's a comprehensive service that is, it's kind of a done with you. We do a lot of done for you, especially all the research is done for you. But then we coach you through which of the perfect fits that we have identified for you might be the best ones for you to consider actually investing in and we stay in touch with you through the whole 9 to 12 month cycle. That is typical in an award process because as I said, you've got those windows, you've got the research process at the front end and once you're clear about that, then you're looking for submission windows being opened and then they close and then you wait months for the announcement date to come along. And we stay in touch and support and encourage and work with you throughout that 9 to 12 month period. And we also do some workshop training during the waiting period while the judging is happening about how you can make the most of your book with or without awards. And we give you some action planning time in that workshop format again to focus on some of the key activities with or without awards that we show you are the kinds of things that can help you make the most of not only your award but your book.
Susan Friedmann [00:22:43]:
Fabulous. And I believe that you have a gift for our listeners as well.
Carol Abrahamson [00:22:47]:
Yes, I have a PDF download my little just 7 or 8 pager called 22 Free Nearly Free Ways to Promote Your Award-Winning Book . All the tricks that the pros rely on. And so that link will be available through the show notes.
Susan Friedmann [00:23:06]:
Yes. Fabulous. I'll make a point of putting that in there. Thank you. And Carol, as you know we always ask our guests to leave our listeners that's a mouthful with a golden nugget. What's your golden nugget?
Carol Abrahamson [00:23:21]:
My golden nugget is I bet most of listeners are very familiar with bestseller status and that's great. Even though I've left you with an impression that about awards maybe having outsized benefits. My golden nugget is to not overlook awards. Whether you're interested in bestseller status or not is fine in your decision. They don't necessarily have to be one or the other bestseller or awards, but to just not overlook the the possible boost that book awards can give your author career and differentiate you from all the other authors in your genre, your industry or your niche.
Susan Friedmann [00:24:01]:
Fabulous. Carol. This has been amazing eye opening. I've learned so much that I already didn't know and I thought I did know, so I'm eating humble pie there. Thank you for sharing so much of your great wisdom and listeners.Â
If your book isn't selling the way you want it or expected to, let's jump on a quick call together to brainstorm ways to ramp up those sales because you've invested a whole lot of time, money and energy and it's time you got the results that you were hoping for. Go to bookmarketingbrainstorm.com to schedule your free call. And in the meantime, I hope this powerful interview sparks some ideas and you can use to sell more books.
Susan Friedmann [00:24:50]:
Until next week, here's wishing you much book and author marketing success.
Here's how to connect with Carol:
Free Report: 22 Free Nearly Free Ways to Promote Your Award-Winning Book
Website
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