A pleasant shock awaited me in my Monday morning inbox:
Congratulations! Out of almost 700 submissions, your e-book, Brain Injury, Trauma, and Grief: How to Heal When You Are Alone, was awarded First Place in Prescriptive/Informative category of the 13th Annual Writer’s Digest Self-Published E-book Awards.”
Several months ago, I’d submitted my self-help book on how to heal from brain injury grief with no expectation of winning. The best I’d hoped for was maybe helpful editorial comments. So to win a category was…WOW!!! The best news after weeks of bad news about my heating.
City Damages Heating
Heating, you ask? Yeah. The city of Toronto isn’t doing such a good job of keeping sediment out of our drinking water, as I discovered when sediment pushed open the pressure-reducing valve between the water supply and my air-to-water heat pump system. That led to a cascading failure of too-high water pressure and burst parts, which ultimately led to water getting into the refrigerant lines and leaking out of the heat pump. My expensive heat pump was toast.
It’s been quite the journey discovering which parts were damaged, which needed to be replaced, and which new ones need replacing because they’re faulty. Argh!
Along with space heaters, my secondary ductless air-to-air heat pump has been pulling its weight, trying to keep me warm. But we positioned the mini-split indoor units to cool the air. Cool air drops; heat rises. Needless to say, the upstairs is way too hot, and the main floor is too cold.
The first Monday of January arrived, heralding another week of wearing longjohns and woollen layers indoors during the day while trying not to broil at night. (Fortunately, the weather has warmed up above zero, and now the secondary heat pump with a little assist from a space heater is keeping my place evenly comfortable.)
Good News From Writer’s Digest
Then I read the email from Writer’s Digest. Wow. Wow. Wow. For several hours, I didn’t care about the 10-degree indoor temperature differential. The best part is, unlike most awards, this win comes with tangible prizes. After incurring tremendous costs over the last month, I sure need both recognition of my hard work and money.
As the news sank in, I realized this win confers credibility on my research and writing. It means that a potential reader may consider my book because it has the Writer’s Digest seal of approval in the form of an award. It really doesn’t matter how stellar editorial reviews are or how much the few who’ve reviewed it like it: readers look for either name recognition or an endorsement by a credible organization.
The Writer’s Digest Self-Published E-book Awards covers 8 categories: 6 fiction and 2 non-fiction. The Prescriptive/Informative Nonfiction category contains the most number of sub-categories. Seeing that shot my eyebrows into my hairline! To be the best out of all of those…I’m floored and grateful.
I’m hoping that this endorsement type of recognition for Brain Injury, Trauma, and Grief will sway readers’ minds to purchasing my ebook!
Brain Injury, Trauma, and Grief Now in Affordable Paperback for Canadians
In related news: I’ve reluctantly decided to use Amazon’s KDP paperback creation service. IngramSpark’s Canadian distributor doesn’t seem to be distributing my last few books or they’re on sale in Canada for a hefty price. IngramSpark re-sent the data to the Canadian distributor, but no dice. The only way to get the paperback into Canadian readers’ hands at an affordable price is through Amazon Canada. It’s not exactly my preference, but needs must.
