Re: Ebook awards in general

Ed,

You are assuming the only reason to enter an award is for sales. That's not
remotely so, which is why having an award geared to promotion doesn't affect
me much. To be blunt, the main reasons for entering an award are: (1) the
line on the resume...and this DOES work; I've seen it in action (2) getting
your work in front of an editor, agent, or other industry pro you want to
contact without wading the slush pile...for unpublished works,
usually...though ABNA has changed to allowing self-published works as well
(3) getting feedback on the project...usually for newer authors and an
unpublished work; there is little sense in feedback on published books and
(4) the pat on the back winning gives the author...their choice for their
money.

All told, few authors enter contests to sell books. For me? I do it to get
the line on the resume...and also because I love competing. It was ground
into me when I was 11 and the nuns started pushing me to enter every writing
competition that came our way, as long as it was a legitimate contest.

Your average reader doesn't care. Only a few awards actually sell books in
impressive numbers...among them Newbury, Caldecott, Hugo, and Spectrum.
Other awards have a minimal effect on sales. Some readers will purchase
based on awards they know. I have met a few people that always purchase the
RITA finalists or always purchase the PRISM finalists or EPIC's finalists in
certain categories. For ANY possible promotional venue, some cross-section
of readers will buy based on it (larger or smaller section...and this one is
decidedly smaller).

You also assume that the awards are only open to certain groups and/or
delivered by vote, as the Oscars are...by a specific group. Again, you
cannot make that determination with any confidence. Some awards are given in
such a way. Some are open to everyone that wants to enter and are peer
judged or reader/reviewer judged awards, complete with variance judging, two
rounds of judging, etc. Some are open to everyone but everyone can vote.
Personally, I put the most stock in peer judged, then reader/reviewer
judged, peer voted, r/r voted... Just based on my experiences. Anything
voted automatically loses points for me, though I admit it's the easiest way
to handle art, since art is so subjective...even moreso than books are.

Depending on how the awards are set up, they have varying levels of security
in the feedback/voting stage of the game, and thus are more or less apt to
be abused to someone's gain. A smart entrant knows how to gauge contests for
these types of problems and doesn't bother with the ones that are abused
regularly. Not to point fingers, but having seen P&E abused and their
complete disregard of proof of abuses, I do not pay attention to anyone's
win of P&E and no longer even check the results myself. Though I trust any
votes for myself are honest votes and not ballot box stuffing, knowing how
many people do ballot stuff there... Not impressing me at all.

I do agree about the nomintated icon/sticker and said it myself. Nominate
has the definition of someone or something worthy being named to a position
of honor. You can sometimes self-nominate, but typically this is done by
someone else that feels your work is worthy. In some contests, it takes at
least a given number of separate nominations to "nominate" a given work.
Entering, by comparison, is the author or other material contributor
choosing to enroll as a competitor in a contest. Even if the work is entered
by the publisher or editor, these are people with both a material and
emotional stake in the success of the book, a little less than the author's
stake in it, and as such, they are self-entering, to some extent. In fact,
in EPIC's eBook Award, multi-author anthologies are entered by either the
editor or the publisher...never authors. Whoever enters is seen as the
"entrant" and will receive the top prize as such. Giving entrants of a
contest a sticker/icon that says they are nominees is somewhat misleading,
since it does not indicate that anyone but the author felt the book entered
as worthy of honor.

Whether or not to enter awards...and which awards to enter are completely
the choice of the author. Just because you don't care for them doesn't mean
no one else does.

BTW, safe traveling, my friend.

Brenna


On Mon, Feb 14, 2011 at 12:18 AM, auwg <auwg-/[email protected]> wrote:

>
> Not even once in my life have I bought a book or watched a movie because it
> had won some sort of award.
>
>
>


-- 
http://www.brennalyons.com    http://www.facebook.com/brenna.lyons
"Though it went against his base nature, Davon -- son of Ares, Horseman of
War, and holder of the red sword -- had to make peace. What an odd turn his
life had taken." ALL'S FAIR...on presale at Silver Publishing
http://silverpublishing.info/product_book_info/coming-soon-c-2/all-s-fair-p-178


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]



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