We spread them out so that no inbox (for those who subscribe to the blog) gets inundated with all the interviews.
Promoting them all at once would be detrimental to the awards as well as the authors because we rely heavily on social media. We promote on things such as LinkedIn, BlueSky, X (formerly Twitter), and Facebook. Facebook alone has over 50 groups we publish the blog in. If we promoted all the authors interviews all at once we’d have inundated the groups, angered a few admins, and probably lost our privileges in those groups.
There are a few groups we do not promote in for various reasons. Either the admins don’t want our type of promotions, there is a conflict with the admins, or Facebook itself has skewed our ability to promote in them. We’re just grateful Facebook doesn’t put us in a time-out for posting in over 50 groups when we do have something to promote. They used to and I suffered the consequences of being put in Facebook ‘jail.’
Having too much information does overwhelm people. This way, it gets the word out about the individual authors, their win, and their book, in a manner that doesn’t make people scroll on by the information. We want the authors to sell more books, promote them and their award, as well as get word out there about our award. We want them to find new readers and the readers to find new authors.
Our awards are unique. Not only does the winner get a physical award for entering, but the judging is triple, almost quadruple blind. What does this mean to those who enter? Your award is judged by anonymous judges, they don’t know who the other judges are, authors and readers don’t know who the judges are, and the judges don’t know whose book they are judging. The books entered do not have the title of the book, the name of the author, or the name of the publishing company on them. All of this is funneled through the Lesfic Bard Awards site and administered by me, K’Anne Meinel. I’m the focal point for all this information. And, believe me, I’m not telling! Also, to be honest, I may have forgotten, good thing I take great notes!
The books entered are given a unique number for the book itself, and the category they are in. The judges refer to this number as they judge the award and add their own unique judges’ number. All references to the books are with these numbers. I don’t even know who it is, or who has won, until the end of the season, when all judges sheets have been submitted, and all the numbers are tallied. Even then, I have to look up who was assigned that number to see who has won.
What we are doing is not rocket science but it does involve a few steps to keep it fair, anonymous, and flowing. It might take a little longer to get to the results, but we can’t think of a fairer way to provide an award for the author’s hard work. Our awards are crystal, the paint on them is hand-painted, and they are heavy! I know, I dropped one taking pictures for the awards one year and nearly lost my little toe. No kidding!
If you have suggestions on what we could do better, I’m all ears. I’m not so arrogant that I wouldn’t listen to reasonable suggestions on how to improve our outstanding awards for the authors and their books.
If you haven’t already, check out our awards site at www.lesficbardawards.com
Lesfic Bard Awards News 