Sunday 24 November 2013

Weekend Update: Announcing the first 7 confirmed authors

Confirmed Authors Attending AuthorCon April 2014:

Children's:

Mary Ann O'Leary

Author of children's poetry.
Mary was also the 2012 winner for age 6-8 poetry in the Wishing Shelf Awards.


Billy Bob Buttons

Author of numerous children's books including 'I Think I Murdered Miss' and the Felicity Brady series.


Faiz Kermani

Author of children's books from age 7+ in English and other European languages.

Lorna Murphy

Author and illustrator of children's books.


Science Fiction and Fantasy

K.C. Finn

Author of a wide range of science fiction, mystery, urban fantasy and time travel/historical tales. Also signed as a Young Adult novelist with Clean Teen Publishing.


Thriller/Crime


Terry Murphy

Crime writer and dark humorist published by Grinning Bandits Books.


Romance


Michelle Abbott

Adult romance author who favours underdog heroes.


Tuesday 19 November 2013

Proud to announce AuthorCon's new sponsor: The Wishing Shelf Independent Book Awards

Today I can proudly announce that AuthorCon UK has it's first sponsor for April 2014: The Wishing Shelf Independent Book Awards.

These superb awards will be announcing their 2013 winners at the AuthorCon event in Manchester and hopefully plenty of the acclaimed and nominated authors from the awards will be there to showcase their fabulous works!

What the WSA is all about:

The Wishing Shelf Book Awards boasts 100% satisfaction from every publisher and author who has, so far, entered (42 in the first year, 104 in the second) . The problem with other awards is, if you win, you win. Fantastic! But if you don't, you get nothing. With our award, every entrant, finalist or not, gets all the feedback from the judging, a catchy quote for the back of their next book or reprint and a review on Amazon and Goodreads. Then, if you are a finalist, you also get a logo, a certificate, marketing on the web and their book in The School Librarian. This year, we even organised for the all finalists in the children's category to have their book reviewed by The School Librarian. The authors were very happy. 
With so many awards right now, particularly for self-published authors, the author is simply a '$' or a '£' sign. Even if they win, by then the organisers are concentrating on getting next year's authors to enter. But we answer every email personally and we ask authors to send us the blurb of their book prior to entering; if we think it's not the sort of thing our readers will enjoy, we urge them not to enter (we turn away approx. 10% at the moment; I often read the first chapter on Amazon (Look Inside) and if it's full of errors and needs a good edit, I tell the author not to bother). There is even a Facebook page so the authors can make suggestions on how to improve the awards and how to best spend the entry fees to best market their books. 

Want even more good news?

Tickets are finally ON SALE! Authors get your tables now and spread the word to guests looking to buy advanced entry tickets with their added benefits!

Visit the Buy Tickets tab now to get yours! 

Monday 11 November 2013

AuthorCon UK Confirms Venue

AuthorCon UK is proud to announce its first 2014 venue as the MadLab in Manchester!


Join us on Saturday April 26th 2014 for a full day book fair featuring a wide range of exciting authors soon to be announced on this blog, plus entertainment and a prize-filled raffle! Come and meet the rising stars of independent British literature in a sweet independent venue right in the heart of Manchester a stone's throw from the popular Arndale shopping centre.

Full up to date details of AuthorCon UK are available here.