{"id":2331,"date":"2009-05-13T23:27:00","date_gmt":"2009-05-14T04:27:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2020-03-27T21:22:49","modified_gmt":"2020-03-28T02:22:49","slug":"golden-duck-strikes-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/henrymelton.net\/2\/2009\/05\/13\/golden-duck-strikes-home\/","title":{"rendered":"Golden Duck Strikes Home"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>A couple of years ago, with my brand new Emperor Dad book in my hand, I was talking to another author when he pointed me to one of the officials of the Golden Duck Awards<\/a>. We shook hands and he took a glance at my book, noticed the 2003 copyright date I’d put on the front sheet and told me it wasn’t eligible, but if I had anything new come out, to be sure and let them know.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n
Well, I learned two things then. One, I was stupid to have put the 2003 date (when I sold it as a PDF) on a book I published in 2007, and two, that I should take him up on the offer. So, starting with my next book, I send a copy of every freshly minted book off to the mailing address listed on the Golden Duck website. Three titles with 2008 copyrights went off to Illinois.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Of course, as with most contests, I get no feedback, and I don’t really expect any. Contests get swamped with submissions, just like editors and agents and reviewers, but I know that books sent out don’t ever really get wasted. Some of them get read. Some get donated to libraries. Some pop up on ebay. <\/div>\n
\"\"<\/a>And sometimes, an email arrives. Last year, I was notified that I was a finalist for the Darrell Award and I dropped everything to go to Memphis, just on the off chance I would win. I did, and it made a wonderful difference to be able to put that award winner tag line when I introduce myself.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
This time, there was none of that maybe stuff. It was a simple, “You won the Eleanor Cameron Award.” First thing I read this morning, and I had to hunt around the house to tell Mary Ann because she was out in the yard weeding the garden. I always enjoy the way she whoops at good news. Lighter Than Air<\/b> had won a Golden Duck!<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Then I had to find the Worldcon site so I could sign up and be there for the awards ceremony. Suddenly, Montreal is on my schedule. Good memories from the last time we were there. I’m looking forward to it.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
But there are a ton of things to do. I’ve got to change the cover on the book to flag the award. Email all my friends. Notify every store that has a consignment copy so they can maybe advertise it. I won’t get it all done today, that’s for sure.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
But it pays to enter those contests.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A couple of years ago, with my brand new Emperor Dad book in my hand, I was talking to another author when he pointed me to one of the officials of the Golden Duck Awards. We shook hands and he took a glance at my book, noticed the 2003 copyright date I’d put on the… Continue reading Golden Duck Strikes Home<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2332,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[1],"tags":[171,276,239,24,81],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/henrymelton.net\/2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/05\/LTA-2inch-1.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4t90x-BB","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrymelton.net\/2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2331"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrymelton.net\/2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrymelton.net\/2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrymelton.net\/2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrymelton.net\/2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2331"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/henrymelton.net\/2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2331\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2334,"href":"https:\/\/henrymelton.net\/2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2331\/revisions\/2334"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrymelton.net\/2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2332"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrymelton.net\/2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrymelton.net\/2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2331"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrymelton.net\/2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}