IngramElliott Publishing is proud to announce that four of our titles have been named as Finalists or Winners in the 13th Annual National Indie Excellence Awards! The National Indie Excellence® Awards (NIEA) celebrates indie publishing and is proud to be a champion of independent presses "going the extra mile" to produce books of excellence in every aspect.



​IngramElliott Publishing truly appreciates the NIEA recognition for these amazing titles and we congratulate our winning authors!

Earlier this month, the Clown William series won the Bronze Medal for Best Fiction Series in the 2019 IPPY Awards and book one in the series, Clown William, was the 2018 IPPY Silver Award winner for Best First Book/Fiction. Set in the late 1800s, this fresh twist on the Western features an unlikely gunslinger with Tourette Syndrome.

Creating an author blog can be an effective extra 'step' in creating your author platform and reaching your audience. Since blogs can be on any topic you like - including those related to or in support of your book - you may pick up additional readers or reviewers interested in taking a look at your book. 

If readers haven't used the particular keywords in their search for you (read more about keywords and meta in our blog post here), they may not immediately see your book pop up in results. Using meta data in your blog post, including keywords and categories, will help search engines find your blog, and in turn, find you as an author. Also include social media share buttons on your blog post (most platforms do this automatically), so that followers can easily post your content to their networks. 

Blog posts can be topics of interest for your readers or related to your area of expertise or knowledge. For fiction writers, a little less straightforward than non-fiction writers, which typically have a specific area of expertise, it may mean relying on your personal experience and tying it into your fiction work.

Building an audience takes time. 
Building an audience takes time. 
Building an audience takes time.

The above is not a typo . . . but it's worth repeating. Whether it's an author blog, author social media sites, author events, and other ways to build your brand, it takes commitment, time, and consistency. 

Blogs aren't for everyone and that's okay. You can get the straight-talk from one of our favorite bloggers of business advice for writers, Jane Friedman, in her post Blogging for Writers. She says, "The most successful blogs have a very focused angle and appeal to a very specific audience."

Creating a blog takes time, but may be worth it if you have an author website to which you can add the content (read our blog post on building an author website). It's best to use the platform you are already using for your author website - this keeps everything in one place and helps keep your marketing (social media links, blog links, author bio and info, events, book info) all in one place. There are many good and easy to use author website platforms. You can also work with a virtual marketing assistant to help set one up.

Another easy-to-use blog opportunity is your Goodreads Author Page. Once your author profile is setup on Goodreads, they make it pretty easy. From your Author Dashboard, scroll down until you see Your Blog. From here you'll have options to write a new post or sync with a pre-existing blog. Goodreads Authors are the only members who can have a blog on the site, so take advantage!

So give your potential readers useful and interesting information, and hopefully those beginnings will bloom into followers and purchasers. 

Vince Bailey is on a roll! Vince's debut novel, Path of the Half Moon, was the winner of the Arizona Authors' Association Literary Award and now this supernatural book series is the First in Category Winner in the 2018 Chanticleer International Book Awards Best Paranormal and Supernatural Fiction Books Contest. 

After being named a Semi-Finalist in the contest, Vince was invited to attend the 2019 Chanticleer Authors Conference in Bellingham, Washington. This unique and progressive conference was jammed packed with featured sessions and workshops on the business, marketing, and technologies of publishing and of being an author. 

Vince enjoyed his time at the conference and was thrilled to walk away with a First In Category win for Paranormal Fiction, truly a great honor. Vince said, "I think it was a great forum for Path, and attending the program provided a great learning event for me, especially in terms of media marketing."

The awards ceremony began in the evening with the banquet catered by the Hotel Bellwether, and sixteen presenters recognized all of the CIBA Semi-Finalists who were in attendance before announcing his or her division’s First Place Category winners for each of the sixteen divisions.

Path of the Half Moon is a truly unique and edgy novel--the first in a series following the story's hero, young Curtis Jefferson. Path of the Half Moon is a paranormal historical fiction tale set in a remote detention facility for wayward boys in the early sixties. Curtis is an African American youth whose character and physical endurance are tested by a murderous inmate and a century-old Apache curse. The novel presents an edgy and thrilling escape from the ordinary, and is being recognized for it's strong thematic elements, including the blurry edges between reality and the supernatural.

Vince is currently working on the second novel in the Curtis Jefferson series, Courses of the Cursed. Learn more and follow the author at www.vincebaileyauthor.com and on Twitter @vincebailey20.

Congratulations to our author, Vince, on his win!