Re: Ebook awards in general - brilliant idea

--- In [email protected], Joseph Dowdy wrote:
> What would it take to entice you enough to enter such a contest with an entry fee of $59

**** $59 ****
Won't happen.

> and give as much detail as possible.

Okay.
As I see it, that $59 is a reading fee and collecting those reading fees appears to be the true purpose of the contest. I've said as much about many other book contests, so don't take this personally unless you can somehow make it fit what you're doing.

About REAL contests, an example...
I shoot pool fairly well. 3rd Prize in a local tourney a few weeks ago. It cost me a paltry $5 to enter a field of 273 contestants.
Total fees were the prize, half to be split between the 3 winners and half to be given to a charity.
No league handicapping or league rules. No excuses.
Make the shot or get off the table.
*** Most importantly, NO 'JUDGES'. ***
No 'what are we looking for?' thinking or sour opinions about certain topics or political views or dyspepsia interfering with judgment.
The point:
In pool, you either make your shots or you don't. You succeed only by successive successes :), not according someone's very probably strongly biased opinions.
Nobody's predispositions about your style or form or the vampire fangs on your cue stick or whether stripes or solids are more aesthetically pleasing will affect the outcome.

That's why -- IMNSHO -- the only writing contest that can possibly matter a fat flying (fill in the blank with your preference) is the one in which PAYING READERS vote with their dollars.

Any book contest which is not geared specifically to entice readers to BUY BOOKS is nothing but a beauty pageant without a cash prize or post-pageant product endorsement opportunities.

All that having been said, some people need pats from peers. They know scoring will be entirely whimsical, yet they're willing to pay fees and subject themselves and their works to the biased opinions of others in order to try to get those shiny unspendable peer accolades.
They want a chance to doll up, strut the red carpet, and thank all the little people. :)

I prefer countable, spendable winnings.
Ed
Ed Howdershelt - Abintra Press
Science Fiction & Semi-Fiction
http://www.AbintraPress.com



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