II have been sending out books to Autism groups listed online. I still haven’t figured out which ones are currently at the addresses listed on the Autism Society of America’s information site. Unfortunately, that is one of the problems with volunteer groups so I send them first class so they are returned if the membership chairman has moved. After I sent out postcards to 140 listed member groups announcing that I had won the Illinois Autism Society/ Reliability Gives Voice to Autism Best Autism Book of 2011 joint contest four were returned because the address was no longer valid and they had no new information so they were not able to forward them. If nothing else, I’m getting to know all the people at the post office.
Autism awareness month coming up fast
March 21st, 2012Jeanne with RGVA 2011 Best Autism book Award
June 26th, 2011I’ve been watching lynda.com to learn how to add images to a post and figured
out the mechanics well enough to get the image on this post but have to go back and watch it again to figure out how to shape the text so it doesn’t think it’s stuck to the picture. Caitlin Doherty took pictures of me holding the “medal.” I think of it as my Oscar. The actual medal emblems will be attached to the front covers of the books. They look terrific.
Contest
June 15th, 2011I got an e-mail from Mary Kay Betz, the Executive Director of the Illinois Autism Society saying my book was in the top five with the winner to be announced at the award dinner in Chicago. I signed up for the dinner, got plane tickets and a room at the Hyatt Regency O-hare, the hotel hosting the Award Banquet. (A very comfortable place with a Starbucks on the ground floor.)
Contest
May 21st, 2011As anyone viewing this site has noted, I’m just learning how to blog. And I’m a slow learner. So I’m hoping this will appear under the Contest title which has been blank ever since I inadvertently hit the control key instead of the shift key to submit a rather lengthy blog describing my stay in Chicago. The award dinner was part of the Maintenance and Reliability Technology Symposium (MARTS).
The RGVA (Reliability Gives Voice to Autism) book awards were conceived in 2010 as a topic specific awards program open to all writers and publishers worldwide who produce books written in English and intended for the reliability & maintenance and autism genres with proceeds being donated to the Autism Society of Illinois.
I had a great time and was thrilled to find out I won first place in the Autism part of the contest.
Mass emailing can be pointless
May 3rd, 2011l spent a couple days gathering names and addresses for the 140 different chapters of the Autism Society of America chapters. There were 156 listed.
Not all had e-mail addresses. I sent the information to each individually. That takes a while. Before I had even finished sending them, I started getting that discouraging message that the address didn’t exist and/or that I wasn’t recognized as a legitimate sender. Discouraging. So I printed 140 oversized postcards to the chapters with street addresses, stamped them with first class stamps so they would be returned if the address was wrong or if the chapter no longer existed, hand addressed them and sent them. Four came back. I got replies from two.The Illinois Chapter told me about a contest to be held in April as part of Autism Awareness month. They were going to select the best Autism book of 2009, 2010 and early 2011. So I sent them the required 4 books and the entrance fee and waited to hear if I made the cut.