Judges of the Next Generation Indie Book Awards
The judges of the Next Generation Indie Book Awards are all actively involved in the indie book publishing industry, and range from literary agents to editors. The judges also include publishing executives, book reviewers, writing teachers, successful published authors, and experts in the various areas of judging including book design.
While a number of judges prefer to remain anonymous, we are pleased to introduce the following judges for the 2010 Next Generation Indie Book Awards:
C. Hope Clark (Hope) is editor of FundsforWriters.com, a well-known writer's reference that reaches over 32,000 readers weekly with grants, markets and motivational editorials that generate stacks of thank-you notes from readers. Writer's Digest Magazine voted FundsforWriters one of the 101 Best Web Sites for Writers for 2001 through 2009, nine straight years, and it is being considered again for the 2010 list. The four FundsforWriters newsletters cover all levels of writers, from teens to novices to professionals, and the readership ranges from stay-at-home moms to Harvard professors and award-winning mystery authors. Hope’s dozen ebooks are rapid sellers ranging from Grants for the Serious Writer to Short & Sweet; Markets for Fillers. Hope has published in many magazines including Writer's Digest, The Writer Magazine, ByLine Magazine, Next Step Magazine, College Bound Teen, TURF Magazine, Landscape Management and several Chicken Soup books. The Shy Writer is a nonfiction paperback she penned to aid writers like her who have difficulty appearing in public. Published in 2004 and reissued in 2007, it continues to sell, aiding the introverted striving to become writers. Hope also writes mystery novels, centered in the agricultural South, where her roots run deep. She acquired an agent who currently shops the Carolina Slade series to publishers. Hope lives on the banks of Lake Murray, in South Carolina.
C. Hope Clark, Editor, FundsforWriters, www.fundsforwriters.com
Writer's Digest 101 Best Web Sites for Writers - 2001 through 2009
Charlotte Cook is cofounder and presidentof KOMENAR Publishing with experience as a published writer, story and acquisition editor, workshop facilitator and book store partner. She is a popular presenter at writers events and writers conferences such as Willamette, East of Eden, Mendocino Coast, San Francisco, Central Coast, and Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers, California Writers Club, Jack London and South Carolina Writers Workshop. Charlotte has an MFA in Creative Writing from Saint Mary's College and has brought to publication far more books, articles and stories for a variety of writers than the six award-winning novels she published for KOMENAR. Writers Digest interviewed Charlotte about her publishing philosophy and company in February 2008. Recently she’s been working with an agent on a book for writers, developing workshops for novelists and screenwriters entitled “Adapting Sideways” with award-winning screenwriter Jon James Miller, and preparing for presentations at several writers conferences later this year. Click here to find contact information for Charlotte Cook.
Richard Cook has been the managing partner of Sunrise Bookshop In Berkeley, California, since its inception in 1974. Sunrise is a specialty bookshop which offers quality books in world religions and spiritual traditions and related fields, including psychology, health, new age and the esoteric. As principal buyer for the store and also principal book recommender to many customers for 35 years, he has read and become familiar with a very wide range of spiritual, psychological and esoteric literature, and has a particular fondness for well-written fiction that touches on these fields.
Peter Cyngot has worked as an art director/designer/photographer for agencies, companies and on a freelance basis for more years than he is willing to admit. His experience covers the full gamut of communication design, specializing in print. He teaches classes in basic design principles, and has been involved in publishing from the beginning of his career.
Gareth Esersky is an agent, editor, reviewer and author. Formerly an editor at major trade publishing houses, she has been affiliated with the Carol Mann Literary Agency since 1993. Gareth is a reviewer for Publishers Weekly and online, she has co-authored three nonfiction books, and currently serves on the advisory board for the MFA program in Creative Nonfiction at Goucher College, her alma mater. She has worked in the publishing industry for thirty years. The mother of three, she lives in Forest Hills, New York and Southern Berkshire County, Massachusetts.
Mary Ellen Gavin has been making up characters and plots all her life. In love with storytelling, and writers who dare to create, she believes that fiction reaches out to us.
After a twenty-year career in commercial finance pitching high-dollar deals, see bio in Who's Who of American Women of the Century, she escaped to literature. Writing, editing and teaching adults in Fairfax County and NOVA Community College for years.
MEG founded The Writers of Chantilly, an ongoing group in Virginia that publishes themed anthologies yearly. She is also a long time member of Associated Writers Program and Gulf Coast Writers Association. She has partnered with many writers, including Lou Aronica, former CEO of Avon, to create novels and scripts. Studying under Derek Rydall of Script Writers Central, she is a certified Script Consultant now working with young screenwriters and pitching to producers and directors.
Presently Mary Ellen lives in Southern California and feels her mission is to find and cultivate the Stories of Today to insure they become the Classics of Tomorrow.
At age 22, Tag Goulet self-published Sell Yourself!, a book recommended "for all libraries" by a review in the journal of the Canadian Library Association. Over the next decade, Tag taught seminars on book publishing in a dozen cities and served as a book publishing consultant for scores of authors, self-publishers and independent book publishers. She was managing editor of Calgary - A Year in Focus, the official gift book for dignitaries attending the 1988 Winter Olympics, and author of Recipe for Success, a CD-ROM distributed in 65 countries. In 1999, she co-founded FabJob, an award-winning book publishing company whose website, FabJob.com, was named "the #1 place to get published online" by Writer's Digest. In addition to managing FabJob’s editorial department, Tag continues to write for other publishers of all sizes. She has contributed to a variety of books including: The Canadian Writer’s Guide (the official handbook of the Canadian Authors Association), a USA Today best-seller published by Simon & Schuster, and books published by divisions of Random House and Penguin Group (USA).
John M. McDougall has been working in the publishing industry for nearly a decade. He has worked both in an editorial capacity as well as in an operational role including acquisitions and distribution. John is a published poet and an avid reader of historical non-fiction; a hobby he developed following his college years when he studied history with an emphasis on comparative religion.
Brenna Pearce has worked in the book publishing industry for several years and has written or contributed to dozens of career and business books including the FabJob Guide to Become a Book Editor and FabJob Guide to Become a Bookstore Owner. Previously, she worked in bookstore management. Brenna has degrees in both medieval history and education, and is the author of the historical novel, Brother Rabbit: The Road to Constantinople. This is her third year judging the Next Generation Indie Book Awards.
Penny C. Sansevieri, CEO and founder of Author Marketing Experts, Inc., is a best-selling author and internationally recognized book marketing and media relations expert. Her company is one of the leaders in the publishing industry and has developed some of the innovative Internet book marketing campaigns. She is the author of five books, including Red Hot Internet Publicity which has been called the "leading guide to everything Internet". AME is the first marketing and publicity firm to use Internet promotion to its full impact through The Virtual Author Tour™, which strategically works with social networking sites, micro-blogs, blogs, book videos, and relevant sites to push an authors message into the virtual community and connect with sites related to the book's topic, positioning the author in his or her market. AME has had eight recent books top the bestseller lists including New York Times, USA Today, and Wall Street Journal. Red Hot Internet Publicity was sold to Sourcebooks and was re-released in Fall 2009. To learn more about Penny’s books or her promotional services, you can visit her web site at www.amarketingexpert.com. To subscribe to her free ezine, send a blank email to: subscribe@amarketingexpert.com.
Sheila Seifert has over 1,000 freelance sales, has authored/co-authored twenty books (for children and adults), and teaches English (writing and literature) for various colleges and universities. She co-wrote the FabJob Guide to Become a Children's Book Author, published craft articles, won design awards, and had her first script for young children produced on PBS in 2006. She is currently the managing editor of a large parenting magazine and also writes home-school and classroom comprehension questions for second through eighth grade books at Simple Literature.
If you are interested in being a judge for the 2011 Next Generation Indie Book Awards, please contact us at info@indiebookawards.com.
Click here to read bios of the judges of the 2009 Next Generation Indie Book Awards