Destined to Choose named award finalist!

I'm super-thrilled to share that my first book, Destined to Choose, has been named a 2015 National Indie Excellence Award finalist!

Here's two things I've learned from this:

1. CELEBRATE! To celebrate this win, Destined to Choose is being offered for FREE as an ebook from Tuesday 5/19/15 through Saturday 5/23/15, and the paperback is 36% off at the publisher's website (https://yotzeretpublishing.com/blog/celebrate-with-us-free-ebook-or-36-off-paperback-of-destined-to-choose/). For those who don't know why it's 36% off and not some more "normal" number, it's a Hebrew language thing. In Hebrew, numbers are written with Hebrew letters. The number 18 is written as חי (chai), which means "life." The number 36, as a multiple of 18, becomes "double life."

2. STAY IN THE GAME! Destined to Choose was first published twelve years ago. Yotzeret Publishing re-released it in 2013 as a new edition with a 10-year-anniversary update to the Author's Note, a few error corrections, an updated interior design, and a new cover (which I LOVE!). That re-release made it eligible for the National Indie Excellence Awards.

I could have said, "You know, it's had a good run. Why invest the extra money to submit it for an award? After all, it hasn't won any awards yet." Reminder to self: it didn't win any awards because it was never submitted for any awards when it came out! Instead, I said to myself, "Self, submit this book! It has a shot at winning. It's a beautiful book, readers love it, and it meets all the eligibility requirements. And, there's still time before the submission deadline. You read about this award for a reason, so submit it already!"

And now here I am, eagerly awaiting the opportunity to put FINALIST stickers on my books. It's exciting. It's something I've wanted for a very long time. And I'm really pleased that I—and others—still believe in this book, because that paid off this week.

And just think: it's less than four months until Strength to Stand comes out!