20th Annual EVVY Award Winners

The 20th Annual EVVY Awards took place at the Santa Fe Arts District this past Saturday night and multiple Outskirts Press authors were on-hand along with the Outskirts Press executives to see which finalists walked away with awards in this Colorado Independent Publishers Association event.

As usual, Outskirts Press had the most finalists among all participating publishers; however this was the first year of the CIPA EVVY Awards when being a “finalist” did not guarantee winning an award. In year’s past, when we have received our list of “finalists” from the CIPA judges, we have been confident that every author on that list would be winning a 1st, 2nd, 3rd, or Merit award on the evening of the banquet. Not so this year. I’m not quite sure why CIPA would have made this change. Just last week during a meeting about the Colorado Book Awards, the executives at the Colorado Humanities had expressed to me a concern about having finalists travel to Aspen only to learn on the night of the awards that they didn’t win anything. I suggested to them that they adopt the CIPA method of ensuring that all finalists at least receive a “Merit” award (or something similar). Ironic, then, that CIPA changed that fundamental element with this most recent event, and it is my hope that they change it back next year. I don’t like the idea of our “finalists” personally attending an event in Denver and walking away empty-handed (nor did one of our authors who attended). Luckily, another Outskirts Press author, who drove all the way from Florida to attend, ended up winning the 1st Place Award in her category…

And on that note, below are the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place winners from last Saturday night. Our full list of winners, including all the Merit Award winners, will be posted on the Self Publishing News blog in the coming days (one of the perks of following my blog is you sometimes get news like this early).

FIRST PLACE

Follow the Light, the Shroud’s Revelations by T. C. Newman

The Southern Chapter of the Big Girl Panties Club by Lynda Stephenson

SECOND PLACE

Rational Polemics: Tackling the Ethical Dilemmas of Life by Richard Todd Devens

Sleight of Hand: Shadow Games by Jennifer Fales

THIRD PLACE

The Sad Tree and Pronuba by Christina Steiner

Tales From the Sea: Secrets From a Cruise Ship by Alexander Flint

Winning the annual Outskirts Press Best Book of the Year award (and it’s $1,500 Grand Prize) begins with winning a CIPA EVVY Award. Are we looking at the Best Book of the Year finalists among these books above? We will find out soon when the finalists are announced in the coming days.