I was thrilled to receive my third award from Readers’ Favorite Book Awards – a Bronze Medal in YA Paranormal Genre for Abby & Holly Book 1 School Dance.

My previous awards from RF were an Honorable Mention for Book 1, Davey & Derek Junior Detective Series, The Case of the Missing Cell Phone, and a Silver Medal for Book 3, Davey & Derek Junior Detectives, The Case of the Magical Ivory Elephant. I was unable to travel to the award presentation in Florida for the two previous times but I was excited to attend this time.

My husband and I arrived home from our trip to Aruba to pack once again five days later to go to Florida for Readers’ Favorite Book Awards. I was excited but a little anxious about what to expect. Being on display makes me uncomfortable at times but I know I had to try to relax, meet and greet other authors and enjoy the experience. It may never come my way again.

The trip began on Friday, November 22, 2019 with a Meet & Greet at the Regency Hotel.

Christina Goebel was a fountain of information for me and we spoke together for a long time.

The next day on Saturday we hopped on a bus and went to the Miami Book Fair operated by Miami Dade College. I was blown away by the amount of tent booths filled with all kinds of books and genres, some with authors and others by schools and others below. I stopped and snapped photos at random of some of the authors and their books.

Friday night we had some inspiring speakers to give us valuable information to help us with marketing our books. Here are a couple of them that were inspirational and well worth listening to.

Before the ceremony my husband snapped my photo in front of the Christmas tree. I know, it isn’t even Thanksgiving!

I snapped some photos of the awards gathering on Saturday evening and other authors as we mingled and shared our books.

There were so many people there besides medal winners that the venue had to bring in more chairs to accommodate them. It was quite a ceremony with lights streaming all around us in colors and a ceiling that lit up as you can see in the above photo.

Well, it was a exciting night and a wonderful experience meeting and networking with all the other authors and being treated so well by the presenters and speakers. I thank them all.

Sunday morning it was time to leave. I gathered up my book from the display shelf in the hotel as did other authors and left behind some of my cards and bookmarks. I was so excited that I wore my medal home as the presenters told us to do to enjoy the feeling a little longer. I was still on a high.

Two days later I am finally coming down as I write this post. Maybe one day I will be fortunate enough to return with another award-winning book.

Thank you for stopping by to read this post. Watch for more books coming from Jemsbooks.

REMEMBER READING GIVES YOU WINGS TO FLY! SOAR WITH JEMSBOOKS.COM ALL YEAR THROUGH! HAPPY READING AND SHOPPING THIS CHRISTMAS SEASON!

Blessings & Hugs!

Janice