Small Business Book Awards: Now Open for Voting!


The 3rd Annual Small Business Book Awards are now open for voting through December 15, 2010.  We invite you to head on over and vote on your favorite business books!

The Awards celebrate the best books of 2010 for small business owners, managers, entrepreneurs and the self-employed.This year the Book Awards are bigger and better than ever.  The nomination and voting experience is more engaging and interactive:

  • We’ve built a new and improved voting platform
  • In case we’ve forgotten your favorite book, this year you are able to submit it online.

We encourage you to vote early and often — one vote per IP address, per book, per day.  So tell your colleagues, friends and followers.  And vote for as many books as you like.  Read the Rules for more information.

DEADLINE

Deadline for voting is December 15, 2010, at 11:59 pm Los Angeles time.  Winners will be announced within 7 days  thereafter.

WHAT DOES THE WINNER GET?

The top 10 vote getters at the conclusion of voting, will each be named to the 2010 winners’ list.  Winners get recognition, publicity and the right to display Winner insignias on books, websites, brochures and elsewhere.

HISTORY OF THE BOOK AWARDS

Back in 2007 we noticed that most business books being reviewed or winning awards were books of interest to the enterprise or corporate audience.  No sites consistently reviewed or recognized books specifically for small business people and entrepreneurs.

Thus began the weekend business book reviews here at Small Business Trends. Since starting the book reviews, our book reviewing team under the leadership of Book Editor Ivana Taylor along with the help of Assistant Editors Pierre DeBois and Margie Zable Fisher, has reviewed hundreds of small business books, writing unbiased in-depth reviews.

Then in 2008 we started the Book Awards. After publishing reviews, we frequently are asked for advice about which books to read. Rather than giving our personal favorites, we decided to get more input — from YOU.

Last year, during the 2009 Awards, over 4,000 votes were cast by the community, resulting in the 2009 Readers’ Choice Book Awards.  Our Editors also chose 10 books for the 2009 Editor’s Choice version of the Book Awards .

This year, with our new voting platform making it easier to vote, we expect even more voting. Many thanks to the folks at Ikon Marketing Group which built the 2010 Book Awards platform in record time.

GO VOTE!

So what are you waiting for?  Go vote!

11 Comments ▼

Anita Campbell Anita Campbell is the Founder, CEO and Publisher of Small Business Trends and has been following trends in small businesses since 2003. She is the owner of BizSugar, a social media site for small businesses.

11 Reactions
  1. Hi Anita,

    Submitted my book and did not get any indication how long the process is for my book to show up. Also, please put the “title and author’s name” instructions on the main submit page. I had to redo my submission.

    Kevin

    • Hi Kevin, Thanks for leaving a note — and thanks for submitting your book to the Small Business Book Awards. We have accepted it.

      – Anita

  2. There are plenty of good books on the list. I voted for several, and my votes seemed to count, but I can’t be sure.

    Can I make a suggestion? Perhaps you could display all the books on one page by default, and order them alphabetically or randomly with each page view. Right now, the books are distributed among several pages, and are ordered by the number of votes by default — so the books with the most votes come first and thus are more likely to earn more.

    • That’s a good suggestion, Maddy. I will talk that over with our developer.

      Do keep in mind, however, that the books at the top of the list are there because they are being actively promoted by their authors. I’ve seen some of the promotions — some are through social media and a couple have been through email lists of fans that the authors maintain — so it’s no coincidence which books are at the top of the leaderboard.

      But I think we could do a random sort.

      And let me assure you — your votes do count! Thank you for voting. We are using the same voting platform (although highly customized) that we use for another of my sites, BizSugar.com, so I know it is accurate and works well.

  3. Anita,

    As an avid book reader, this is a great happening! 🙂 I look forward to follow the contest, getting great reading tips, etc.

  4. Hi Anita
    Is the One Page Business Plan on your list?

    • Hi Maria,

      Which “One Page Business Plan” did you mean? Can you provide a link to where we can find the book? I see a number of books with that title — and many were published before the eligibility date of October 1, 2009.

      Or, the book can be submitted directly on the Awards site for our review and approval.

      – Anita

  5. Hi Anita,

    I just wanted to thank you for running The Small Book Awards 2010. I didn’t submit and start getting votes till December 8th but got very busy with social media and contacting my lists and groups. In the end “31 Days to Greeting Card Marketing Mastery” ended up 8th overall and in 3rd place in the Marketing category.

    I’ve already been approached by two places that have asked me to do articles or speak on how I used social media and relationship marketing and contacts to promote and ask for votes.

    One thing I wish I’d thought of sooner was to get the URL PleaseVoteforMyBook .com (I got it on the 13th) which made it easier to tell people when I was at networking events and when I did radio interviews.

    Because I belong to some international NING groups I was pleased to see a contingent of votes (according to what they told me anyway) from Estonia, Finland, Sweden, England, and even Australia. Woohoo!

    So I had a blast and it was fun to share the excitement with my groups (I don’t have cold lists, but rather work hard to maintain warm relationships). I also found that I had unprecedented open and click rates for my email newsletter when I just plain outright asked them to support my book for your contest.

    We’ve noted that sales of the print and ebook versions have also improved because of the contest and because of all my communications about it.

    So thanks again! You did a real service!

    Oh yeah, and one more cool thing that happened for me. December 15th is my birthday and I have a LOT of friends on Facebook. Several hundred wrote to wish me happy birthday and I stayed on Facebook every day and as quickly as I could responded to every one of them and asked the to vote for the book – and obviously many did, maybe in part because I was able to stress the urgency of it being the last day!

    Thanks a bunch,

    Bruce Brown
    Quantum Results Coaching
    910-297-8753
    Bruce@QuantumResultsCoaching.com