Bookstore FAQs
Awards FAQs
Review and Award Workshop Slide Presentation
Click here for an Adobe Acrobat (PDF) version of a online workshop outlining procedures for MWSA reviews and awards.
Bookstore FAQs
- How do I list my book/movie/CD on the MWSA website?
- If you are an active MWSA member, just use our Bookstore/Review Submission form to provide your book's information to our webmaster so he/she can upload it onto the site.
- Be sure to include:
- Your contact information
- Your name
- Your email (this is almost a necessity to ensure timely service; but we can upon occasion use regular mail)
- Your website
- Your contact information
- Information about your book:
- Title
- Author
- Publisher and date published
- ISBN
- Price (let us know if you'll be offering discounts for MWSA members)
- A short synopsis
- Any existing reviews
- Your book website
- Link to other purchase locations (e.g. Amazon.com or Barnes & Noble, etc.)
- Any other info you'd like us to put online
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Who can submit a book for inclusion on
the MWSA website?
- Any active MWSA member (gotta pay those dues! J)
- Books submitted for review must be submitted by an active member author, co-author, or by their publisher.
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Do I have to pay dues each
year to keep my book online?
- Frankly, it would be too difficult to add and remove listings based on whether or not a member has kept his/her dues up-to-date. However, once your membership lapses, we will not make any changes/corrections to your listing.
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Where do I find my book once
it's posted online?
- Navigate to "Bookstore," and then search for your/a book on the appropriate section: lists by author name, or listed by the book's title.
- With the new website format, we're trying to make it easier to navigate around the site and to find your book.
- For the time being, MWSA is no longer updating the books listed by genre or topic. We are leaving the old (no longer updated) pages on the site.
- Over the next several months, we hope to add new functionality to the site by instituting new search capabilities. When the new system is operational, MWSA site visitors will be able to browse our selection of books by several different criteria, such as genre (Non-Fiction, Thriller, Memoir, etc.), by topic (Vietnam, Current Events, All things Military, etc). This update will take several months to complete, however, so please bear with us... change is on the way!
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Is anything off
limits?
- Anything clearly pornographic is obviously verboten, but we're open to honest adult literature. Clearly, not everyone can agree on what that means. Suffice it to say that we will err on the side of freedom of expression.
- Given our connection to the military, although it's not our intention to stifle honest debate, it's not our job to trash the military.
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How can I send you my cover art?
- We recommend you use jpeg format.
- If you know how to do so, please resize your cover so the width is 250 pixels.
- We will also reduce the size to a 100 pixel width on some pages.
- If you don't know a pixel from a jpeg... don't worry, just give us a link to your book on your website, (or other commercial site like Amazon.com or Barnes & Noble) and we'll copy and paste it onto our site.
- What are those
scroll bars by the books? Why do some books have
them... and others not?
- The scroll bars allow you to see the entire book (or review) listing.
- Some book/review listings are short, others can be quite long. To ensure that each author gets about the same amount of space for his or her book, MWSA limits the length of what is displayed on each page.
- If the book or review entry exceeds that length (FYI: the max length is about 800 pixels), the website automatically generates scroll bars to allow the entire entry to be accessible to our site visitors.
- How do I submit my
book/movie/CD for review?
- PLEASE... do not send us your book unsolicited!
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Do not send a book or books unless you have filled out a "Review Request" and the Lead Reviewer informs you who has been assigned to review your work.
- Do not send books to the MWSA PO Box address!
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- You must be an active MWSA member
- MWSA reviews published books only. It must have an ISBN and a price. Please do not send manuscripts, ARCs or "treatments" -- including Adobe PDF, MS Word or MS Word Perfect files. Handwritten or typed drafts or outlines will not be accepted.
- Use our Bookstore/Review Submission form or... send in a form via "snail mail"
- see #2 below to see what happens after you submit a book for review...
- PLEASE... do not send us your book unsolicited!
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Who will review my book?
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Once you submit your book for review, the lead reviewer will assign your book to one of our reviewers based on their expertise, interests, and workload
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Our lead reviewer will then contact you and provide you with the reviewer's name and address. At this point, you'll be able to send him or her a copy of your book, which will not be returned.
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For more details of the timing of our review process, please see #4 below
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What criteria do you use?
- MWSA strives to provide meaningful, professional and helpful reviews.
- Our lead reviewer has outlined how the MWSA review process works and has provided guidance as follows:
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The review process (from assignment of an MWSA reviewer through completion and upload of the final review to our website) can take anywhere from a few weeks to several months.
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The timing for your book will depend upon many factors:
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the number of active reviewers we have "on call" (please bear in mind that we're all volunteers!)
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our reviewers' workloads (especially for books requiring a reviewer with special expertise and/or experience)
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the number of books submitted by our members
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the workload of our webmaster to get the final review posted "live" in our online bookstore
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Rest assured that we will make every effort to complete your review as quickly as possible. However, if you get the feeling that your book has been "lost in space," please don't hesitate to query our lead reviewer for an update.
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Where
do I find my review once it's posted online?
- You can find it several ways:
- Check under your reviewer's name
- Browse the review page, using the appropriate author name or title listing
- Eventually, all Bookstore listings that have reviews will also have links to the review.
- You can find it several ways:
- Are there
any special considerations for photo books?
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Basic rules for written word books apply, the procedure does not change, with one exception.
two copies will be needed to forward to two separate reviewers, addresses will be provided as
with written books process. -
To constitute a photo book it must be comprised of a minimum of fifty pages of which a minimum of 80% must be photographs and all photographs must be author originals.
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Judging by two judges creates a fairer balance and scores from the two will be averaged.
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Awards FAQs
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MWSA awards are given to active MWSA members in several categories and are subject to change each year at the discretion of the MWSA President:
- Founder's Award (Selected by Bill McDonald, Founder & Past MWSA President)
- President's Award
- Gold, Silver, 1st and 2nd Runner-Up Medals for the following:
- Military Non-Fiction
- Memoir
- Historical Fiction
- Fiction
- Children's
- Poetry
- Spiritual & Religious
- Armed Services (Army, Navy, Air Force & Marines)
- Current Events
- Reference
- Anthology
- Photography (new for 2010)
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How often are awards given out?
MWSA awards are announced each year
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What is your process for deciding which submissions receive awards?
- All books submitted for review by active members or their publishers are automatically considered for MWSA awards
- see #3 above (in review section) for more details about the review process, which forms the basis of the award process.
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- The MWSA President is in charge of the award selection process.
- The Lead reviewer appoints an award committee each year, which will consist of the Lead Reviewer, Vice President, three Reviewers and two Alternates. In addition the President will preside over categories where a conflict may exist with either the Lead Reviewer or Vice President having an entry in a given category.
There are more awards and award programs pending... stand by for details!