In November 2013, MARSocial launched the Author-of- the-Year competition, which is extremely altruistic. The authors involved in the competition are promoting each other by tweeting and re-tweeting their own as well as the other author’s excerpts to bring awareness to both the social medial site and their books. Over 250,000 individual tweets promoting the international authors have been going out so far. Finally, a competition that is run by authors for the benefit of all authors who enter. To enter this competition authors simply had to post the most exciting excerpt from their book, (between 500 & 1,000 words and then tweet and re-tweet the excerpts via the Twitter button appearing at the end of each excerpt.
The winner and the 20 runner-ups will be announced on February 1, 2014. MARSocial in conjunction with KeeranVaani Creations International Film Producers will present the M.A.R.S. Author of the Year Award, The Ephraim Prize, named after Joseph Ephraim the contest creator and a truly amazing person.
The Finalists (in no particular order) are: James McAllister, Lisa Glenn, LaRae Parry, Geri G Taylor, Ed Gellock, Marie Lavender, J.K. James, Doug Bolton, Karynne Summars, Anne Rasico, Coleman Weeks, D.J. Ridgway, Lisa Jones, Annie Edmonds, Sarka-Jonae Miller, Anna Devina Reeve, Jaro Brice, Hally Willmott, Theresa Mortimer, Regina Puckett, Laura Creen, William Frederick, The Author, Stephen Douglas, Xao Thao, Kyle Brown, Robin Glasser, Theo Von Cezar, Jane Dougherty, CF Winn, Jon Gemoets, William Lobban, ZJ Hellen, Victor Wright, Ann Simpson, Augusta Fussell-Fern, A.G. Moye, MJ Porter, Ian barker, Lillian Roberts, SC Rhyne, Jax Jillian, A.J. Raven, Erin Solaro, HM Jones, RC Fettig, Marion Lovato, DB Corey, Beck Robertson and Anne Ferretti.
You can read all of their excerpts here: http://marsocial.com/groups/marsocials-author-of-the-year-competition/docs