CSPA "Book of the Year" Award and Fundraiser Need

Grandparenting Through Obstacles wins "Book of the Year" in Family/ Relationships category at Christian Small Publishers Association

I'm very pleased to announce that Christian Small Publishers Association (CSPA) has announced the winners of their 2013 Book of the Year awards and Grandparenting Through Obstacles won in the "Family/Relationships" category!

I thank everyone who took the time to go vote for my book. Obviously, this wouldn't have happened without you!

I'd also like to offer my sincere congratulations and thanks to my co-author, Renee Gray-Wilburn, and our publisher, Tracy Ruckman at Pix-N-Pens Publishing for all she has done and all she is continuing to do to make this book successful. I also wish to thank and congratulate the twenty writers who contributed their stories and to Cavin Harper who wrote the foreword in the book.

Opportunity to promote books at ICRS in St. Louis this summer

In a separate but related story, I have an opportunity to attend the International Christian Retail Show (ICRS) again this year, this time as an author for Pix-N-Pens Publishing. ICRS is a trade show where Christian book publishers get together with Christian retailers and bookstore owners. Publishers and authors get to share their books with the retailers so they can work together to get their books into the stores.

Two years ago I went to ICRS as my own publishers of Deliver Me. I was able to go through my membership in the Christian Small Publishers Association. I paid my own way, paid to use CSPA's booth to host my book signing, and supplied 75 of my Deliver Me book for free give-away. I can tell you all that was quite expensive.

Now Pix-N-Pens Publishing is doing the same for five of its authors, including me. But PNP is a small publisher and only opened in 2011. It does not have a big budget for taking its authors to ICRS. So, with publisher Tracy's usual inspirational creativity, she came up with an idea to make it happen. Tracy set up a fundraiser over at www.FaithFunder.com to raise the needed money for the entrance into the trade show, to rent the CSPA booth for the author signings, and to supply the required 60 of each book represented.

I will be representing three books:

• Grandparenting Through Obstacles: Overcoming Family Challenges to Reach Your Grandchildren for Christ
• Prophecies Fulfilled in the Birth of Jesus
• and the just-now releasing Prophecies Fulfilled in the Death & Resurrection of Jesus

Please note each of the authors are paying all their own travel expenses (travel, hotel, meals, etc.). This fundraiser is ONLY for the expenses of attending the trade show and holding our book signing alongside the major publishers.

If you can donate...or even if you can't

Even if you don't wish to donate, please stop by the site and watch the video Tracy made. It runs about 4 minutes and it made me laugh out loud. That's me there-- in the very first picture and in the very last.

If you feel so inclined, we would truly appreciate a donation. You can get all the details here: Going to St. Louis to promote my Pix-N-Pens books. There are only a few days left to donate, so please stop by soon.

There are some great incentives.  You can get a digital copy of any of our books for only $5. You can get a print version of any of our books for only $10. (That means if you want one of my books, you can get it at a bargain right now and save the shipping!) You can get a portion of your manuscript or screenplay critiqued, or  have an author visit your Book Club along with a dozen copies of a book for your club members. You can see all the incentives listed down the side of the Faith Funder page.

If you don't wish to donate to this cause, that's fine and I thank you for allowing me to tell you about this new adventure and our need.

So that's all the news for this mid-month update. Thank you so much letting me tell you about this wonderful new "Book of the Year" award from Christian Small Publishers Association, and about the help we need with expenses to take all my books and the books of the other authors to the International Christian Retail Show in St. Louis in June. I appreciate each of you, and I pray the best for you right now in your own writing too.

Please VOTE for Grandparenting Through Obstacles!

Great news! The book I co-authored with Renee Gray-Wilburn has been nominated for "Book of the Year" at Christian Small Publishers Association! We need your vote if our book is to win!

Voting is open only through March 31, 2013. Would you please click through right now and cast your vote for Grandparenting Through Obstacles here?  http://www.christianpublishers.net/13votes/ 

It's in the "Family / Relationships" category which is the second category down. The book is on the right (third row of books down) with the blue cover.

If you want to check out the book further, read the reviews on Amazon or check out some pages on Amazon's "Look Inside the Book" feature.

After you vote you can snag a print or an e-copy of the book from Amazon for Kindle or BarnesandNoble.com for Nook.

You're allowed to vote for one book in each category. A Familiar Shore  in the fiction category is published by the same publisher and I know the author, Jennifer, would appreciate your vote for her book too.

It would help us a lot if you'd ask your friends to vote also. You can send them to http://www.christianpublishers.net/13votes/ .

Thank you again for voting for one of my books. As you know, winning "Book of the Year" is great publicity and would help get the word out about Grandparenting Through Obstacles: Overcoming Family Challenges to Reach Your Grandchildren for Christ so people who need it will hear about it.