After weeks of voting, 6 books have emerged as finalists for the Packt Author of the Year award. We will now send these books to our judges for their expert assessment.

The finalist titles are presented below in alphabetical order. Well done to all of these authors for writing books that won the popular vote. The author(s) of the winning book will receive the trophy and the $1000 cash prize.

Find out more about the award at the Packt Author Web Site.

Alfresco Developer Guide -- Jeff Potts

Drupal Multimedia -- Aaron Winborn

Learning Drupal 6 Module Development -- Matt Butcher

Learning Ext JS -- jointly Shea Fredrick, Colin Ramsay and Steve "Cutter" Blades

Object-Oriented JavaScript -- Stoyan Stefanov

Service Oriented Architecture with Java -- jointly Vincenzo Caselli, Binildas A. Christudas, Malhar Barai

As the next stage begins, may the best author win!

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Thank you to everybody who voted for their favorite book. We will spend the weekend tirelessly sifting through the data, and announce the finalists on Monday.

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Shea Frederick, one of the authors of Learning Ext JS, uses the book's Amazon product blog to post bonus tutorials and link to blogs that review the book. Is it a coincidence that his book has been one of the best selling Packt books on Amazon?

All of these posts appear on the book's product page, so any time people look at the book on Amazon they see this material and are more likely to buy.

Now, Shea is using it to promote himself in the award. I don't know how many people are voting as a result of that, but every little bit helps...

Learn about creating your own book blog on AmazonConnect.

     

Click here to download:

Amazon_Product_Blog_self_promo.zip (544 KB)

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Packt today launches the new Packt Author of the Year 2009 Award, with the winner receiving a $1000 cash prize and a commemorative trophy.

The Packt Author award 2009 is open to authors of all Packt books published during 2008, including revised editions of older titles. The first prize will be $1000 cash and a commemorative plaque.

“In April 2009, Packt Publishing will reach its fifth birthday,” says Packt Editorial Director Louay Fatoohi. “We are leaving our preschool years behind and we are happy to celebrate with a thank you present to our most essential asset – our authors”.

Packt’s first title was released in April 2004. Since then it has published over 200 books in printed and electronic form. In total, Packt has published work from over 250 authors.

Packt will use an open vote to select five finalists from among the eligible authors. These finalists will have their work examined by a panel of judges, who will select the overall winner based on the quality of their work, and their contribution to the tech community.

This is the first time that a tech publisher has recognized the work of their authors in this way.

The judges are:

• Cristian Darie, and experienced author who has published titles with Packt, Wrox, Apress, and SitePoint
• Louay Fatoohi, editorial director for Packt Publishing
• Solveig Haugland, OpenOffice.org trainer, author, and founder of getOpenOffice.org
• Lous Suarez-Potts, OpenOffice.org Community Manager and Chair of the OOo Community Council

Readers who have enjoyed any of the Packt books published during 2008 should visit http://authors.packtpub.com/content/packt-author-award-2009 and place a vote for the author(s) of their favourite title.

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We decided to launch a Packt Author of the Year Award and chose to get a trophy made up that looks like this:

(The question marks are there because we don't know who's going to win yet... so please vote now.)

We were excited when we unpacked the trophy and saw how good it looked... but our joy turned to sorrow when we tried to photograph it for the web site. Taking a photo of a cut glass trophy is no easy task. Either the photos had reflections:

Or the flash was too strong:

Or they weren't in focus:

(And our attempts at creating a black background were haphazard at best...

)

In the end we bit the bullet, and decided that taking a photo of the Packt Author Award was a job for a skilled professional.

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