Of all these book awards, the most prestigious are the Nobel Prize in Literature, the Pulitzer Prize, the Booker Prize, the International Booker Prize, PEN America Literary Awards, and the National Book Award. These awards are highly coveted, being recognized globally by authors alike across all genres.

Reader’s Favorite, Pencraft, Pinnacle, Readers Choice, Firebrand, Literary Titan, The Bookfest, Author Shout, etc to list a few that have legitimate contests despite the money required to enter them. They don’t make up categories or change their awards. Quality books in set genres win different levels. They are run with the style of a true awards should be. I now bring you the CROOKED one. This is NOT Libel or Slanderous as it is posted with the Better Business Bureau and the repost and complaint are visible for anyone to see and read.

On the image above, I see no mention of Her Alibi being a fiction book whatsoever. I will elucidate further. Please read the actual categories I never entered into. This will change as you will see if you read this post.

From Steven Seril:

Your Awards! ” Hi Mary! Congratulations on your huge success in our recent Outstanding Creator Awards contest! Attached below are your award certificates and two versions of our award seal that you are now free to use! — Steven Seril Outstanding Creator Awards OutstandingCreator.com

From Mary Schmidt:

Steven, Sorry, but I can’t accept the award because they are wrong for many reasons, sadly my efforts for awards have been destroyed and money wasted. I’m in tears! 1. Her Alibi is NOT fiction – thus it cannot take third place for best fiction spring 2024. I lived this hell for my entire life and now it is reliving a different hell for the categories to be so messed up. 2. Pseudo-Memoirs – what does that mean? 3. Parenting 2nd place? You can use that one. But what parenting did my mother do? She did none! 4. Psychological Fiction 2nd place? Her Alibi is NOT fiction! It should be Psychological Non-Fiction! But then it wasn’t judged in that category. I lived this entire book and it is a true memoir. Please don’t drag my book down publically with any news release. It’s not fair. 5. Horror 1rst place. I did live the horror of the entire book. 6. Best Supporting Character Honorable Mention? What is that? Who supported who? 7. Best Villain – Honorable Mention? How can that be? My mother was untreated for her mental illness from birth to age 82 years. My BISAC subjects are: TRUE CRIME / Forensics PSYCHOLOGY / Forensic Psychology FAMILY & RELATIONSHIPS / Abuse / Child Abuse My THEMA subjects are: Memoirs True crime Coping with / advice about abuse True stories of heroism, endurance & survival Coping with / advice about death and bereavement Family psychology Psychological thriller My keywords are: shooting;gunshot;force feeding;abuse;gaslighting;alibi;crime;true crime;jailed;whipped;despicable;police;hid gun;fingerprints;psychotic;1960s;1970s The ONLY solution I see is to have HER ALIBI run in the current Summer contests which is unfair to me as I was judged with Spring books. What do you suggest? Those certificates are trashed. I won’t, and can’t, use them for publicity for the obvious reasons listed above. Those categories below can’t be rejudged for the spring or not? My BISAC subjects are: TRUE CRIME / Forensics PSYCHOLOGY / Forensic Psychology FAMILY & RELATIONSHIPS / Abuse / Child Abuse My THEMA subjects are: Memoirs True crime Coping with / advice about abuse True stories of heroism, endurance & survival Coping with / advice about death and bereavement Family psychology Psychological thriller If you reply back, please reply to this email and CC to as I’m with doctors for the next few days, but I can read it via my phone email. I must go now, as the tears just won’t stop and I see no way to repair this. — Thank you so much! Mary Schmidt aka S. Jackson https://whenangelsfly.net/ M. Schmidt Productions

Steven:

Hi Mary, I hear what you’re saying and can understand your frustration. However, did you realize that at the beginning of “Her Alibi” it clearly states that this is a fictitious memoir, so we had to judge it based on that? I’ve attached a screenshot of that passage from the PDF that you submitted. So, we had to go based on that information. I’m sorry for all you’ve gone through with your real-life mother, and we really enjoyed your book and gave it a lot of props and credit. That’s why it won so many awards. We didn’t do that to hurt or spite you–of course not. We care about our authors and do what we can to elevate them. At the same time, we don’t feel it’s our fault that the book was stated to be a fictitious memoir in the book itself and went with that interpretation. I would also advise that you not take things so personally. The grand majority of people don’t respond to winning awards like this. We didn’t name the mother “Best Villain” or Harold as “Best Supporting Character” to be real-life, personal digs or insults at you or anyone else. We named them that because they’re compelling figures in your book that people might be intrigued to read about. They’re reasons to buy the book, in other words. Numerous other authors of memoirs and biographies have had themselves or people they knew named Best Villain, Best Character, or Best Supporting Character without issue. They all understand that it just shows that their book was read and that the person or persons described in it stood out to the reader. Regarding the Parenting category, this book is a good example of bad parenting. Don’t you think? It’s a book that focuses on what not to do and how not to be. Joseph Fagarazzi’s book in this contest also involved a very bad parent. Same with G.L. Franklin. They understood that their books were in those categories because they focused on parents, that includes bad or even horrifically bad ones. If you would like, we can adjust the entry to be third in Non-Fiction, change the category on the certificate to simply Memoir, remove it from Psychological Fiction, and remove the mentions of characters in the Special Awards. Again, attached below is the passage from the book describing it as a fictitious memoir. – Steven

Mary:

Steven, Please make sure my book is removed from whatever site it’s listed since the awards don’t fit my book. Can that be done ASAP please? I was going to go big on social media but I can’t. How to fix? How to fix fairly since spring books are done and those are the ones I competed in? If run in the right categories for summer then my book is up against books that are unfair to run against. Maybe you should refund my money for this terrible screwup? As it stands, I can’t recommend your awards at this time, depending on how you will fix this I’m so upset, I’m still crying. Hubby just suggested for me to not send anymore emails to reduce my stress level until you have a real plan, if any. Last resort if you can’t fix this fairly, refund my money and I report you to the Better Business Bureau how badly you and your people messed up. Then I post on social media everything that happened so wrongly done by my book, that no one looked at it to see it’s true story and not fiction.

Steven:

Mary, I can’t emphasize enough that we spent a lot of time reading and reviewing your books. We put a lot of thought, effort, and energy into doing so. We have a reputation for being thorough and brutally honest. It’s in our description. The scores and rankings you received were fair and reflected our feelings about the books and experiences with them. Keep in mind that you’re competing against dense books that have been edited, proofread, beta-read, and rewritten numerous times by professionals. Some of them were objectively better performing books than yours. I hope you understand that we can’t just move you up a spot or into 1st-place. That isn’t fair. I can offer to change the placement of the book into categories relating to points 1 and 3 (Non-Fiction, Autobiographies & Memoirs), then add your book to our Crime category (which will be noted to include True Crime / Forensics). In fact, I’ve spoken to some of the judges and we wouldn’t mind putting it in 1st-place in Crime since it is better and more interesting than the books currently in 2nd place in that category. You can be sent a new digital certificate reflecting that if you choose. – Steven

Steven:

Hi Mary, As a good faith gesture, here is an updated version of your award certificate with the desired categories. Mentions of it as fiction have been changed as well. It was also elevated to 2nd place in Non-Fiction (instead of 3rd-place in Fiction) due to being seen as comparable in quality and style to another book in that tier called “Swerve” by G.L. Franklyn. It was also placed in 1st-place in True Crime/Forensics as mentioned in the previous e-mail. – Steven

Mary: Funny how Steven can then change his verbiage and thoughts on my books! So now my books is comparable to quality and style of another?

Steven, That won’t work. You didn’t live this and you don’t understand. The psychological aspect and forensics are not mentioned. At All. Please see my attachments. You can’t simply read one sentence of a disclaimer and go by that. What about the last sentence of the disclaimer? I’ve thought long and hard on this. 1. Change Best Fiction book to Best Non-Fiction and a higher award level. 2. Change Pseudo – Memoir to True Memoir and up one level. 3. Add in True Crime/Forensics as I entered by typing that category. It needs a good rating for explicit descriptions of what happened throughout the book. I want you to read the book. A two hour read. 4. Leave Parenting, Horror, Best Supporting and Best Villian. Please see attachments. Thank you. PS: You dinged Christmas in Evergreen bad even though it had twists and turns and was heavily researched. Assassins, the KGB, what were you all thinking? My 50th book wasn’t good enough for anything better than one Second Place?

Steven, I truly can’t imagine spending a lot of time reading Her Alibi which is a short two hour read and with 12 actual photos makes it even less to read. I fail to understand how “a lot of time was used” looked at, most of this would have been non-issues.

You are the only award contest who didn’t look enough to see why the first sentence was a disclaimer. Every other contest looks at the categories and you didn’t! I even wrote that the focus was on the psychological aspect of having untreated mental illnesses until age 82.

It’s not that she got away with the shooting. It’s the mental, child, and grandchild, until she died in November of 2012. You write rankings were fair and brutally honest, yet the awards on my attached front cover shows how compelling Her Alibi truly is. Please take a good look. You slammed my writing style unfairly. True Crime / Forensics should have been noted right away. The certificate looks better, but take a good look at my cover. My book was professionally edited. So, how do you plan to FIX Christmas in Evergreen? I have that cover attached as well. By the way, this one was my 50th book! There are FOUR GOLD awards on it right now and I’m sure November. You don’t know me, and you don’t know my work and creativity. My reach on X (formerly known as Twitter) is over 50 million and I have the proof. I also hand painted my cover. Christmas in Evergreen to fix.

Mary, Your demanding and rude behavior is inappropriate and uncalled for. We will make no further accommodations in your favor. We have already gone above and beyond in fulfilling our obligations as a service including providing you with $10 discounts for each of your books, bonus categories at no additional cost, multiple awards, and redoing the digital certificate by request. Meanwhile, you have violated the Terms & Conditions that you agreed to when you entered our contest. Those are: – You acknowledge that by participating in the Outstanding Creator Awards contests that you are not guaranteed a satisfactory outcome (i.e. victory). – You also agree that you will not seek retribution against the judges or organizers of Outstanding Creator Awards for a perceived wrong (such as not winning or placing) such as by posting or sharing defamatory or slanderous statements on social media or to your associates Earlier, you had attempted to pressure us into improving your placement and ranking. That in itself is unethical in a competition. Furthermore, if we did not do this, you demanded your money back for a service that was already fulfilled that you signed up for almost 100 days ago. That’s over three times longer than our 30-day refund limit. You also threatened to go to social media or the BBB if your demands were not met, further trying to pressure us into giving you a more favorable result. We are not those other book contests. We don’t know how they may have handled similar demands, but we will also not compromise our integrity by being pressured, intimidated, extorted, or blackmailed into providing a result that is undeserved and unearned. The services you paid for at a discounted rate were fulfilled and exceeded. You now have two options: 1. Take the awards that you have from us and move on in peace, or 2. Continue to make demands and attempt to pressure us into giving you a more favorable outcome. If you do so, you will be disqualified for violating the Terms & Conditions of our contest and all of your current awards from us will be voided and considered invalid. At that point, all mention of you and your books will also be removed along with your awards. We recommend that you take your awards and cease communication.

((((( The other awards entered kept true to form and didn’t change or make-up strange categories. This person was the only one who has ever not read categories listed as competing in nor looked at book genre. This is all public at the BBB, thus I can now post this on my blog. )))))

Mary:

Steven, Keep all awards and refund my money. If not, the BBB it is then.

Steven:

You now have two options:

1. Take the awards that you have from us and move on in peace, or
2. Continue to make demands and attempt to pressure us into giving you a more favorable outcome. If you do so, you will be disqualified for violating the Terms & Conditions of our contest  and all of your current awards from us will be voided and considered invalid. At that point, all mention of you and your books will also be removed along with your awards.

We recommend that you take your awards and cease communication.

Mary: Now with this being part of the BBB

Complaint: 21685841

I am rejecting this response because: The fully egregious manner they treated me with. If they say it is $130 paid, then they need to refund the $130. Nothing else is acceptable. They need to run awards in the right manner and not flip flop on their words and verbiage back to me. Their TOU is invalid due to their inability to actually read the written word, see the categories, and the real life BISAC codes and what the books are actually about and not just a first line disclaimer to prevent libel. On Her Alibi, I was taken aback by “awards” that were not awards. Then they flopped and offered awards that “they make up” and they don’t even look at the categories chosen by me. The email manner they have treated me, and the purely vindictive manner they are using against me, for Christmas in Evergreen, a four Gold medal recipient book was the straw tha broke the camels back. The awards are a sham and a scam.

Her Alibi – they changed award categories when shown it was a true story.

Christmas in Evergreen – they abused me in my the emails back to me.

Their TOU does not include what happens when they strike back at me with agregious and spiteful verbiage. Therefore, they owe me $130. Plus they need to be listed under the BBB as a very unfavorable and untrustworty scam awards they make up categories to suit their whims. I don’t want to have to take this global in a blog post and show the numerous ways they treated me, flipping and flopping and making up things that simply don’t exist.

From Business to BBB Twice:

MESSAGE FROM BUSINESS:

We stand by our initial response. 

From BBB:

Mary Schmidt

Subject:

BBB complaint has been closed

Mary Schmidt

Dear Mary Schmidt,

This message is regarding Complaint ID # 21685841- Outstanding Creator Awards

Your complaint is closed for the following reason:

We understand you are NOT satisfied with the business’s response, and have noted your dissatisfaction in our files.  While we were unable to reach your desired resolution, the business has provided your Better Business Bureau (BBB) with its position. As BBB is not an enforcement agency, we cannot force a business to offer any specific remedy for consumer complaints. In this case, we cannot force the business to issue a refund. This matter is now closed in BBB files, and will appear in the company’s BBB Business Profile as: “Answered – the business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer remains dissatisfied.”

Please note, the text of your response may be publicly posted on BBB’s website.  BBB reserves the right to not post in accordance with BBB policy, and we may edit your response to protect privacy rights and to remove inappropriate language.

We appreciate the opportunity to be of service, and sincerely hope you will contact us for future pre-purchase information. 

Sincerely,

Mary Ann R
Core Services Manager
maryannr@bbbinc.org
Phone: 316-719-4204

MESSAGE FROM BUSINESS:
We stand by our initial response.

((((( Please note, the text of your response publicly posted on BBB’s website. ))))) This means I can now blog this and not break their TOU as it is public with the BBB.