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hrjAs I mentioned in last Thursday's post, I have a hard time finding methods of self-promotion that I'm comfortable with, but sharing excitement is one that I'm pretty much ok about. I have hopes of being about to get a fair amount of mileage out of sharing my excitement over book awards. Fortunately for writers, there are plenty of different awards out there, from the highly-specialized to broad categories, so there's plenty of excitement to go around. Since many of my readers may be unfamiliar with the details (or what various stages in the process mean) here's a brief rundown.
Let's be brutally blunt here: the chances of Daughter of Mystery being a blip on the radar of any awards list that isn't focused on LGBTQ publishing is pretty small. Sure, I'd love it if someone thought enough of the book to nominate it for a Nebula or a Hugo. (We aren't talking about being on the short-list for the ballot, just one or two lonely nominations that would be a cool way of saying, "I think this book belongs to, and is worth the notice of, this community.") So I'm going to stick to the LGBTQ awards.
In terms of awards that are taken relatively seriously, the awards "season" seems to start off with the Rainbow Awards as its eligibility period runs from September to August rather than being based on the calendar year. This award seems to have started off as a sort of crowd-sourced "popular choice" process, but has evolved into a more formal structure. The awards are sponsored by a private individual (I think) rather than an organization and the prize is simple bragging rights, but with a fair amount of community respect. Books are self-nominated for consideration and there's a donation-based entry "fee" (that is, there's a suggested donation to a list of suggested charities in lieu of an entry fee). Books can be hard-copy or e-book. The Rainbow Awards probably have the largest array of possible genre/topic categories, with 18 genre-based categories (including non-fiction) intersecting with 4 topic categories (gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender). There's a system for combining categories if there are insufficient nominees, but only within topic-group. In the first round of judging, each book is scored by three judges in four 10-point categories (plot, setting, characters, writing style). As I understand it, any book that gets at least one score of 36 or greater, gets on the Honorable Mention list. The short-list of finalists takes the top-scoring books in each category, not less than 3 and (if I understand correctly) up to the top half in the category. This means that the Honorable Mentions and Finalists mean different things: it would be theoretically possible for none of the nominees in a category to get an Honorable Mention, and yet for there to be Finalists in that category. Conversely, it is theoretically possible for a book to get an Honorable Mention and yet not make the cut for Finalists if a very high proportion of the books in that category were rated highly. In the final round of judging, each book is read and scored by 3-5 judges and a winner is selected. Winners will be selected by December 8. Daughter of Mystery is competing in "Lesbian Fantasy Romance" for which there were 6 nominees, and is one of I believe 2 Honorable Mentions, and 3 Finalists.
As noted above, most of the awards are based on a calendar-year eligibility period. The Golden Crown Literary Society focuses specifically on lesbian publishing and their "Goldies" again cover a variety of genres. Books are self-nominated, there is an entry fee for administrative expenses (like the trophies), and books must have been published in hard-copy. There are 12 genre categories (plus "debut novel" and "popular choice" which are separate) and categories are included as long as there is more than one entry, although the number of finalists and winners may be reduced if fewer than 8 are nominated in the category. Daughter of Mystery has been nominated in Science Fiction/Fantasy as well as Debut Novel.There are rolling deadlines for nomination (so that the judges can get started earlier) and for books published up through the end of August there are currently 21 nominees for SFF and 20 for Debut. (So pro-rate for projected totals.) There can be up to 8 short-list finalists and up to 3 winners (co-winners, not ranked) in each category. Finalists will be announced at the beginning of May and winners are announced at the annual GCLS conference in July (which I will be attending).
Somewhat more of a long-shot are the "Lammys" -- the awards given by the Lambda Literary Society. As with the Goldies, the eligibility period is the calendar year, entries are self-nominated, and there is an administrative entry fee. These cover the whole LGBTQ spectrum again, but with many fewer categories. There are six paired genre categories that separate gay and lesbian books (the genres with the most books, e.g., romance, general fiction, mystery, erotica). There are two categories each (fiction and non-fiction) for bisexual and for transgender books. And the remaining eight genre categories include LGBT all together. So Daughter of Mystery will be competing in LGBT Speculative Fiction (which includes sf, fantasy, horror, paranormal, etc). While it's relatively unusual for books from mainstream publishing houses to compete for the Rainbow Awards or the Goldies, it's not at all uncommon for big house publications to be nominated for Lammys. So, for example, of the 19 books nominated so far in Spec Fic, there are three from Tor Books, and I'll also note four from Lethe Press which -- while not a "big publisher" has a very respectable pass-through-to-short-list rate for the Lammys. For this award, I'll count it a personal win if I make the short-list and won't worry about anything else. The finalists will be announced in early March and winners at an awards ceremony in early June.
There are a handful of other awards that are on my radar. The Gaylactic Spectrum awards (LGBTQ SFF) have been having some logistical issues and are a couple years behind in getting the judging done, but if the submissions open up for 2014 publications I'll definitely be looking at them. There are also some awards on the Romance side of the community (like the Romantic Times Prism awards -- SFF and queer-friendly, but definitely not queer-specific) but I see DoM much more solid on its SFF credentials than on its romance credentials.
So there you are. December for the Rainbow winners, early March for Lammy finalists, in April The Mystic Marriage comes out, early May the Goldie finalists are announced, June the Lammy winners, and July the Goldie winners. Plus anything else that comes along. Next time, I promise I'll be less jittery about all this. An award or two can go a long way toward getting readers (and reviewers) to take your next book(s) seriously and it's hard not to see this first award season as a referendum on my writing. I'll settle down eventually. But I don't promise not to squee every single time.
Let's be brutally blunt here: the chances of Daughter of Mystery being a blip on the radar of any awards list that isn't focused on LGBTQ publishing is pretty small. Sure, I'd love it if someone thought enough of the book to nominate it for a Nebula or a Hugo. (We aren't talking about being on the short-list for the ballot, just one or two lonely nominations that would be a cool way of saying, "I think this book belongs to, and is worth the notice of, this community.") So I'm going to stick to the LGBTQ awards.
In terms of awards that are taken relatively seriously, the awards "season" seems to start off with the Rainbow Awards as its eligibility period runs from September to August rather than being based on the calendar year. This award seems to have started off as a sort of crowd-sourced "popular choice" process, but has evolved into a more formal structure. The awards are sponsored by a private individual (I think) rather than an organization and the prize is simple bragging rights, but with a fair amount of community respect. Books are self-nominated for consideration and there's a donation-based entry "fee" (that is, there's a suggested donation to a list of suggested charities in lieu of an entry fee). Books can be hard-copy or e-book. The Rainbow Awards probably have the largest array of possible genre/topic categories, with 18 genre-based categories (including non-fiction) intersecting with 4 topic categories (gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender). There's a system for combining categories if there are insufficient nominees, but only within topic-group. In the first round of judging, each book is scored by three judges in four 10-point categories (plot, setting, characters, writing style). As I understand it, any book that gets at least one score of 36 or greater, gets on the Honorable Mention list. The short-list of finalists takes the top-scoring books in each category, not less than 3 and (if I understand correctly) up to the top half in the category. This means that the Honorable Mentions and Finalists mean different things: it would be theoretically possible for none of the nominees in a category to get an Honorable Mention, and yet for there to be Finalists in that category. Conversely, it is theoretically possible for a book to get an Honorable Mention and yet not make the cut for Finalists if a very high proportion of the books in that category were rated highly. In the final round of judging, each book is read and scored by 3-5 judges and a winner is selected. Winners will be selected by December 8. Daughter of Mystery is competing in "Lesbian Fantasy Romance" for which there were 6 nominees, and is one of I believe 2 Honorable Mentions, and 3 Finalists.
As noted above, most of the awards are based on a calendar-year eligibility period. The Golden Crown Literary Society focuses specifically on lesbian publishing and their "Goldies" again cover a variety of genres. Books are self-nominated, there is an entry fee for administrative expenses (like the trophies), and books must have been published in hard-copy. There are 12 genre categories (plus "debut novel" and "popular choice" which are separate) and categories are included as long as there is more than one entry, although the number of finalists and winners may be reduced if fewer than 8 are nominated in the category. Daughter of Mystery has been nominated in Science Fiction/Fantasy as well as Debut Novel.There are rolling deadlines for nomination (so that the judges can get started earlier) and for books published up through the end of August there are currently 21 nominees for SFF and 20 for Debut. (So pro-rate for projected totals.) There can be up to 8 short-list finalists and up to 3 winners (co-winners, not ranked) in each category. Finalists will be announced at the beginning of May and winners are announced at the annual GCLS conference in July (which I will be attending).
Somewhat more of a long-shot are the "Lammys" -- the awards given by the Lambda Literary Society. As with the Goldies, the eligibility period is the calendar year, entries are self-nominated, and there is an administrative entry fee. These cover the whole LGBTQ spectrum again, but with many fewer categories. There are six paired genre categories that separate gay and lesbian books (the genres with the most books, e.g., romance, general fiction, mystery, erotica). There are two categories each (fiction and non-fiction) for bisexual and for transgender books. And the remaining eight genre categories include LGBT all together. So Daughter of Mystery will be competing in LGBT Speculative Fiction (which includes sf, fantasy, horror, paranormal, etc). While it's relatively unusual for books from mainstream publishing houses to compete for the Rainbow Awards or the Goldies, it's not at all uncommon for big house publications to be nominated for Lammys. So, for example, of the 19 books nominated so far in Spec Fic, there are three from Tor Books, and I'll also note four from Lethe Press which -- while not a "big publisher" has a very respectable pass-through-to-short-list rate for the Lammys. For this award, I'll count it a personal win if I make the short-list and won't worry about anything else. The finalists will be announced in early March and winners at an awards ceremony in early June.
There are a handful of other awards that are on my radar. The Gaylactic Spectrum awards (LGBTQ SFF) have been having some logistical issues and are a couple years behind in getting the judging done, but if the submissions open up for 2014 publications I'll definitely be looking at them. There are also some awards on the Romance side of the community (like the Romantic Times Prism awards -- SFF and queer-friendly, but definitely not queer-specific) but I see DoM much more solid on its SFF credentials than on its romance credentials.
So there you are. December for the Rainbow winners, early March for Lammy finalists, in April The Mystic Marriage comes out, early May the Goldie finalists are announced, June the Lammy winners, and July the Goldie winners. Plus anything else that comes along. Next time, I promise I'll be less jittery about all this. An award or two can go a long way toward getting readers (and reviewers) to take your next book(s) seriously and it's hard not to see this first award season as a referendum on my writing. I'll settle down eventually. But I don't promise not to squee every single time.
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no subject
Date: 2014-10-06 02:09 am (UTC)Re: Rainbow Awards
Date: 2014-10-06 04:24 am (UTC)Congratulations! Can't say I'm surprised at least one judge rated DoM at least 36/40, though (not if they have any taste and discernment!)
BTW, who is allowed to nominate books for Hugos and Nebulas?
Re: Rainbow Awards
Date: 2014-10-06 04:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-10-06 05:43 am (UTC)Where did you find the list-of-books-nominated-so-far? I went a-looking, and couldn't find anything current...
no subject
Date: 2014-10-06 05:50 pm (UTC)If that isn't bringing up this year's submissions list (which you are on, of course), is it possible your browser has an old version cached?
no subject
Date: 2014-10-06 08:10 pm (UTC)Thank you! (And yay, rivals! I'll root for you if you root for me...)
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Date: 2014-10-06 11:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-10-06 11:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-10-07 02:26 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-10-07 02:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-10-07 04:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-10-07 10:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-10-08 12:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-10-08 04:07 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-10-08 06:57 pm (UTC)