New Mexico's Rio Grand Books Authors Win Awards

Media Contact:
JPX Media
800-733-6511 jpxmedia@earthlink.net


USA BOOK NEWS ANNOUNCES WINNERS AND FINALISTS OF THE NATIONAL ³BEST BOOKS 2007² AWARDS, INCLUDING 7 AWARDEES IN NEW MEXICO

Simon & Schuster, Penguin-Putnam, HarperCollins, Random House, Houghton Mifflin Co., John Wiley & Sons and one publisher from New Mexico Score Top Honors in the 4th Annual National ³Best Books² Awards

LOS ANGELES: USABookNews.com, the premiere online magazine and review website for mainstream and independent publishing houses, announced the winners and finalists of THE NATIONAL ³BEST BOOKS² 2007 AWARDS (BBA) on November 1, 2007. Over 500 winners and finalists were announced in over 140 categories covering print, audio books & courses, e-books and interactive CD-ROMs. Awards were presented for titles published in 2007 and late 2006.
Jeffrey Keen, President and CEO of USABookNews.com, said this year¹s contest yielded an unprecedented number of entries, which were then narrowed down to over 500 winners and finalists.

Winners and finalists traversed the publishing landscape: Simon & Schuster, Penguin-Putnam, HarperCollins, Random House, McGraw-Hill, Houghton Mifflin Co., John Wiley & Sons and Rio Grande Books in Los Ranchos, New Mexico along with hundreds of independent titles contributed to this year¹s outstanding BBA competition. Keen adds, ³BBA¹s success begins with the enthusiastic participation of authors and publishers and continues with our distinguished panel of industry judges who bring to the table their extensive editorial, PR, marketing, and design expertise.²

Award highlights in New Mexico include the following:
€ New Mexico in 1876-1877 by Robert Torrez (Rio Grande Books, Los Ranchos,
NM) was honored as the winner in the Media/Journalism In addition, Rio Grande Books snagged six other Finalist awards for:
€ Villages & Villagers by Abe Pena (Finalist, Multicultural Nonfiction) € Memories of Cibola by Abe Pena (Finalist, Multicultural Nonfiction) € Atarque: Now All Is SilentŠ by Pauline Chavez Bent (Finalist, Multicultural Nonfiction) € Between Two Countries by Joseph Sanchez, Bruce Erickson, and Jerry Gurule (Finalist, History: U.S.) € Avenging Victorio by Dave DeWitt (Finalist, Fiction & Literature:
Multicultural Fiction)
€ New Mexico: A Biographical Dictionary by Don Bullis (Finalist, Biography:
History)

Keen says of the awards, now in their fourth year, ³The 2007 results represent a phenomenal mix of books from a wide array of publishers throughout the United States. As an executive in the publishing PR and marketing industry and president and CEO of JPX Media, I wanted to create an awards competition that recognized books in their publication year rather than months after the original launch window. With a full publicity and marketing campaign promoting the results of BBA, this year¹s winners and finalists will gain additional media coverage for the upcoming holiday retail season.²

USABookNews.com is an online publication providing coverage for books from mainstream and independent publishers to the world online community. USABN Magazine Online is the monthly electronic magazine e-mailed free to a large cross-section of the book buying public. JPX Media, in Los Angeles, California, is the parent company of USABookNews.com.

A complete list of the winners and finalists of the USABookNews.com National ³Best Books² 2007 Awards are available online at http://www.USABookNews.com .

Rio Grande Books can be contacted for interviews and additional information at 925 Salamanca NW, Los Ranchos de Albuquerque, NM 87107, 505/344-9382, info@nmsantos.com

Connie Gotsch www.conniegotsch.com Host Write On Four Corners KSJE FM, Farmington NM www.ksje.com Author two award winning novels Snap Me a Future and A Mouthful of Shell available www.dlsijpress.com