I went over to peruse the ABNA boards today, because it's March 22, and that means that the next round of finalists went up this morning. (They are getting much better at doing that early in the day, even for us East Coasters)!
Amazingly enough, it was kind of nice to not be all stressed out about what I'd find. I didn't even feel compelled to check the lists - because, since I got cut in the first round, obviously my name wasn't going to be on it. (Ok, I'll admit, I did check the YA list... just on the off chance that there was some kind of mistake on the first one). But I wasn't worried about it.
Would I have loved to get the feedback that comes from making it to the second round? Of course. Can I get that feedback anyway? Well, I do have a friend who made it to "Vine Reviewer" status on amazon... she didn't get asked to be an ABNA judge... but she's as qualified as they are. And she'll give me a nice review, because she thinks my book is awesome. :)
Moving on... I'm sure I'll enter next year, because it's fun. But if I never make it past round two... it doesn't really matter. It's not a REAL fantastic method for measuring whether or not your book will succeed. I know enough people who have read and enjoyed my books, and there are people I DON'T know who have read and enjoyed my books, and most importantly I enjoy my books... so I'll stick with them. However, I'm beginning to see the up-side to sticking with self-publishing... mostly because my family is setting up a marketing/media company, and I'm thinking that using that company to promote/sell my books while retaining all rights to them might be what I would most enjoy doing. Besides, form rejection letters are depressing. ;) I'm thinking about submitting my ms to DAW though, they still accept unsolicited/unagented submissions... shot in the dark, but it might be fun... just to see.
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