Hurry... Amazon Kindle Competition Ending

Hi Everyone, Just one final blog reminder that our Amazon Kindle competition (win one for you and one for your friend!) closes April 30.  If you have not told all your expat women friends to join, please do so today.  Thanks for your support!  Andrea

Want to Win a Kindle for You and Your Friend?

Hi Everyone, In an effort to further raise awareness of Expat Women and the plethora of free resources we have available for women living abroad, please support our 'Tell A Friend' competition and tell as many friends as you can to join ExpatWomen.com and to answer "Friend" in the "How Did You Hear About Us?" box.

On 30 April at 5pm New York time, we will compile a list of every new member who was referred by a "Friend" and then ask someone independent of ExpatWomen.com to randomly select a winning number that will match one of the new member numbers who were referred by a "Friend".

The winning member will be emailed from contactus@expatwomen.com and asked who referred them. If they do not reply within seven calendar days they will be emailed again. If they do not reply within a further seven calendar days they will forfeit their chance to win and a new winner will be randomly selected. This process will continue until we have a winner who responds to the winning notification email with the name of their referring friend, so that we can be sure that we actually have a winner (and their referring friend) to claim these great prizes!

The winning member and their (one only) referrer (who must also be a current member of ExpatWomen.com) will each win an Amazon Kindle Wireless Reading Device (6" display diagonal E Ink® edition, 8" x 5.3" x 0.36") valued on Amazon.com at 1 March 2010 @ US$259. Judges decision will be final.

So please rally some support for us and encourage your friends to join Expat Women today!

Thanks so much in advance for your support, Andrea.

PS. In response to a few questions about this post, I need to add that: If you are already an ExpatWomen.com member and receive our monthly newsletters, you do not have to join again on the sign-up page. Just ask your friends to visit that page and sign up please. Thanks. :-)

Amazon 2010 Breakthrough Novel Award

Hi Everyone, Amazon.com have announced that along with the Penguin Group (USA) and CreateSpace, they have launched the third annual Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award. This is an international competition seeking the next popular novel.

"For the first time, the competition will award two grand prizes: one for General Fiction and one for Young Adult Fiction. The 2010 competition will also now be open to novels that have previously been self-published. Each winner will receive a publishing contract with Penguin, which includes a $15,000 advance.

Congratulations to last year's Breakthrough Novel Award winner, James King, whose winning novel, Bill Warrington's Last Chance, will be published by Viking in August 2010. Bill Loehfelm's Fresh Kills, the 2008 winner, is now available in paperback.

The Breakthrough Novel Award brings together talented writers, reviewers, and publishing experts to find and develop new voices in fiction. If you're an author with an unpublished or previously self-published novel waiting to be discovered, visit CreateSpace to learn more about the next Breakthrough Novel Award and sign up for regular updates on the contest. Open submissions for manuscripts will begin on January 25, 2010 through February 7, 2010.

See the official contest rules for more information on how to enter."

Expats: Will Your Kindle Work Abroad?

Hi Everyone, I visited Mary Mimouna's Expat Abroad blog last week and read her interesting post about which countries support Amazon's Kindle.

Now, I could go to Amazon and find the link with this information as well, but I always think that if a blogger is clever enough to construct a useful blog post, they should get a shout-out about it.

So if you are thinking of buying a Kindle, drop by Mary's site to see if an Amazon Kindle will work in your expat location. :-)

Calling All Writers Interested In Self-Publishing, Print-On-Demand, Lightning Source & Aiming At Amazon

Hi Everyone, Have you ever heard of Aaron Shepard? He's the guy that wrote Aiming At Amazon, which Expat Expert Robin Pascoe once described as the book that changed her life, with its insights on how best to go about self-publishing via Lightning Source and then selling your book(s) on Amazon.

Well, here is some fabulous news, if you are a writer and/or interested in self-publishing...

Aaron Shepard has just announced on his blog that you can now download for free, the draft version of his upcoming revised book - Aiming At Amazon: The NEW Business Of Self-Publishing OR How To Publish Books For Profit With Print On Demand By Lightning Source And Book Marketing On Amazon.com.

The idea is that anyone downloading the book will do so with the intention of providing any applicable feedback/comments by the end of August, to help him finish the book in time for his scheduled September release.

This is a GREAT opportunity to learn from someone who really does seem to know what he's talking about, in terms of self-publishing, Lightning Source and Amazon. We read his first edition and it was EXCELLENT. So... what are you waiting for? Go for it! :-)