Posts Tagged With: IPPY

Call for guest posts!

Posted on April 27, 2013 by Michelle Proulx

Happy Saturday, everyone! Ain’t the weekend grand?

All right, enough frivolity. Down to business. I’m insanely busy and I’m not posting as much as I want. This saddens me. Not to mention I think you guys are all fairly awesome. So this is a call for guest posts. You can write about literally anything you want that’s writing/publishing/reading related (okay, so not literally anything, but very close).

It will be a great opportunity for you to promote your own blog/book/self, not to mention I’ll have one less blog post to worry about. Then I can instead focus on more important things, like doing my laundry so I don’t have to go out dressed in a floral pink peasant shirt, grey sweat capris, stripy blue and black knee socks, and electric blue crocs. Mental image just scar you for life? Exactly.

Anyway, if doing a guest post sounds interesting, hit me up in the comments or via email (michellishelli@gmail.com). I can post it whenever you want — like I have a blogging schedule! Ha! — so sky’s the limit, friends!

In other news, the IPPY Awards announce their winners on April 30th. Fingers crossed for an imminently dangerous victory!

Unrelated media of the day:

Source: http://i.imgur.com/BuznQ.jpg

Categories: Blog-related | Tags: beaver, blog, blogging, guest blog, guest post, IPPY, laundry, platypus | 37 Comments

Amateur Life Tip: Lovely Spam, Wonderful Spam!

Posted on April 9, 2013 by Michelle Proulx

I usually ramble on for a few paragraphs before getting to the point, but today’s tip is fairly important, so I’m just going to come out and say it:

Stop what you’re doing right now and go check your Spam folder.

Back? Excellent. Did you find anything useful in there? Even if you didn’t, I highly suggest making a habit of checking your Spam folder at least once a week. Otherwise you’ll end up like me, and spend weeks wondering what happened to your very expensive contest entry when the answer was hidden in ye olde Spamme folder all along.

Story time!

Story #1: The missing acceptance letter

As you may remember, I recently entered the Independent Book Publisher (IPPY) Awards. I sent them $99 and a softcover book (+shipping), so it was a fairly significant monetary investment on my part. The website said they’d send a confirmation email as soon as they got their hands on the book. But I never received that email.

After raging a bit (you know how it goes), I sent them a friendly email asking if they’d gotten my book. No response! Grrrrr. I was just about ready to sharpen up my oversized wooden spoon and go on a rampage when I decided to check my Spam folder on a whim. Voila! Three emails from the IPPY folks, all buried in the Spam graveyard.

So this story has a happy ending — my book did get to the IPPY Awards, and it’s officially entered. Huzzah!

Story #2: The giveaway gaffe

A few weeks ago, I entered a contest on the lovely Lorraine Pearl’s blog for a chance to win an autographed model card from a romance cover model she got to do a guest post. I completely forgot about entering … until I checked my Spam folder in the wake of the aforementioned missing acceptance letter incident, and discovered that I had won the model card! Huzzah!

Except that was from three weeks ago, and I had never replied — gasp! I quickly fired off an email explaining the situation, and Lorraine’s getting it all sorted out.

… okay, I admit, I only had two stories. But you get the picture! Check your Spam folder! What if an agent’s desperately trying to sign you, and their emails are getting rerouted to the Spam folder without your knowledge? Doom! Ruin! Despair! Exclamation mark!

Unrelated media of the day:

I’m sure everyone and their mother has already heard this song, but I just recently discovered it, so, heck with it. I’m sharing it here. Let’s all rock out on the count of three. Ready? One … two … three!

Categories: Random, Writing | Tags: Email, Email spam, gmail, IPPY, ippy awards, lorraine pearl, my body, Spam, young the giant | 37 Comments

Just entered my first book contest! (IPPY Awards — deadline March 16th)

Posted on March 14, 2013 by Michelle Proulx

Just popping in to share some super exciting news — I’ve officially entered Imminent Danger into the 2013 IPPY Awards (Independent Publisher Book Awards). Preliminary research indicates that this is a legit contest — and if it isn’t, don’t tell me now, because I already entered and it’s a little too late for second guessing.

Because the deadline is in two days, the entry fee is $95. Yikes. But you know what, why not? I think I’ve produced a pretty darn cool book, and I’m hoping the IPPY peeps will think the same.

Anyway, if you’ve got $95 lying around and feel like entering your book in what is purportedly the “World’s largest international and regional book awards competition”, this is pretty much your last chance! Deadline is March 16th, so get over to their site and enter! For anyone interested, I used the online entry form, which just involves filling in a few fields, entering your credit card info, and then printing out the resulting page and sticking it in the front cover of your book and sending it off to the address they helpfully provide.

I predict great success and imminent victory for Imminent Danger. Should I not win this prestigious award, I shall do something JAW-DROPPINGLY TERRIBLE!!! — probably along the lines of drowning my sorrows in ice cream and then writhing on the floor in pain because I’m lactose intolerant. The future is bright, my friends. The future is bright.

Unrelated media of the day:

Some English guy in Japan moved into a new apartment and got this note from his neighbour: