Posted August 30th, 2010 by ScottAllen

We had an astounding 113 entries in the Poet’s Week contest. After all the dust settled, Valerie Byron, aka gooduklady, emerged as the winner of $200 for her entry:

Congrats, Valerie!

Posted August 20th, 2010 by ScottAllen

Ever wondered how to effectively promote your book on BookRix? Our resident marketing genius Tim “maicherinho” Maicher has put together a great collection of tips and tricks to help.

Don’t sweat it that it’s on the German site – the book’s in English (promise!).

If you’re looking for more ideas on marketing your book, be sure to check out these groups in our community:

• Marketing Tips For Writers
• Marketing for writers

Posted August 6th, 2010 by ScottAllen

Are you on Twitter yet? Are you using it to promote your book(s)? We’ve been getting pretty active there, connecting with BookRix authors and readers, sharing little bits of information, quick tips, fun stuff, etc., that’s too short for the blog.

If you’re on Twitter, here are a few ways you can connect with us, and we’ll even help you promote your book.

1. Follow us at BookRixUS.
2. Follow our BookRix authors list.
3. If you’re an author, send us a message that you’d like to be added to that list.
4. Tweet about your book. Be sure to actually say something about it, not just post the link. Also, please use a URL shortener (we recommend bit.ly, but there are literally hundreds of them), as our URLs are kind of long-ish. If you do actually say something about it, we’ll try to re-tweet you at least once. We regularly check for mentions of BookRix and links to our site – it’s done by humans, so it may take a couple of days and occasionally we may miss one or two.

Posted August 3rd, 2010 by ScottAllen

Drabbles are extremely short stories of exactly 100 words. The challenge is fitting in all the components of a story within a mere 100 words. It’s no easy feat, but it’s a challenge worthy of you all!

For this writing contest, all genres are welcome! Each book must have 3 drabbles stories in it. The limit is on the word count so make sure to check your work before you enter it. You may enter more than one book in the contest, but an author can only have one book in the top 10.

Of course, we have wonderful prizes to give out: $600 for first place; $400 for second place; and $200 for third place.

Timeline:
Submissions & Community Voting – August 2, 2010, to September 13, 2010
Jury Voting – September 13, 2010, to September 27, 2010

Not ready to join in? You can still help your fellow BookRixers by reading their contest books and voting for your favorite stories. Our readers choose the top 10 stories, which then will be reviewed by our independent jury.

In addition, we will have a certain number of wildcards in this contest. That means that not only the top 10 stories with the highest amount of votes will be given to the jury, but also other good work (without as many votes as the top 10) will go to the jury.
You also could win prizes for voting — when you vote, you enter into a raffle to win one of 10 Amazon gift cards worth $20.

Posted July 21st, 2010 by ScottAllen

July 24, 2010, is National Day of the American Cowboy in the USA. In honor of the occasion, we’re declaring it Cowboy Week here at BookRix.

Cowboy Week will be full of cowboy and cowgirl stories! Any stories that relate to modern-day cowboys/girls to old-fashioned ones who ride off into the sunset are acceptable. Shine your cowboy boots and get your horse ready – Cowboy Week on BookRix will take place between July 21 and July 29. Boy howdy!

For this writing contest, there is no limit on pages! You may enter more than one book in the contest.

And we sure do have one heck of a prize: $100 gift card to a Western wear store for the first place winner! Now you can get that genuine cowboy hat you’ve always wanted!

Community Voting – July 21, 2010, to July 29, 2010
Not ready to join in? You can still help your fellow BookRixers by reading their contest books and voting for your favorite stories. Our readers choose the top story to receive the fabulous prize.

Posted July 14th, 2010 by ScottAllen

Congratulations to Ankita Verma, the winner of a $100 Amazon gift card in the Vampires vs. Werewolves mini-contest in the Gothic World group, for her story:

"How to get a life: The story of a vampire."

You can also check out some of the other stories in the contest in the voting thread.