Why don’t we put up all the interviews and promote them all at once?

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

Judge applications always welcome

Do you have what it takes? You won’t know until you apply!

We have had doctors, lawyers, teachers, editors, and other professions! Please, take a moment to consider what this will mean to authors who have put blood, sweat, and tears into creating stories that mean something to the Lesbian/Sapphic and Women Loving Women community!

This is how our judging is different

If you feel you are up to the task, please apply here.

Thank you

On behalf of the 2023 Lesfic Bard Awards, I want to express my gratitude to the judges who gave selflessly of their valuable time to read the many entries we received this year.  Not only did they read the entries, they graded them using a system we devised that we feel is particular to lesbian literature.  While the judges’ names can’t be announced, I want them to know how much we appreciate their efforts on behalf of all the authors who entered our awards.

We are delighted that many of the judges who served in 2023 have already committed to return in 2024 for another year of the Lesfic Bard Awards. 

If you have published since January or are planning to publish in 2024, you will want to enter your book in our awards as quickly as possible as outlined on our website because we anticipate our judges will be very busy as the year progresses.

To everyone who participated this last year, thank you, and we look forward to meeting and welcoming those who will participate in future awards. 

Remember, only the Lesfic Bard Awards has the unique triple-blind judging. The judges do NOT know who the author is, who the publisher is, or what the book name is. This ensures that the book is judged solely on it’s merits!

Rumors

Hey there, hope you are having a terrific spring wherever you may be in the world!

We’re coming along on the last of the books, boy there were a lot this year, and the judges are wrapping it up. We are almost ready to announce the winners of the 2023 Lesfic Bard Awards. I know, you’re as anxious as I am!

Recently an author came to me and asked about our judges, were they college students I was using to read the books? We do not use college students and I don’t know why someone is spreading that particular rumor. The only thing I can think of was my own publishing experiences when I went back and had my early short stories and novellas read by students and polished, but that was years ago.

Our judges have been doctors, lawyers, teachers, and others who qualify to judge lesbian fiction. If any of them are back in college, students, they don’t make their personal life a part of our interactions. It really wouldn’t matter, at least in my opinion, because they are adults, judging books on their merits, the stories that make up our lesbian lives.

Occasionally, the website has gone down, I know that makes people (especially me) anxious as it makes it look like we disappeared. I’ve addressed that with our website provider, but hey, some of these things are just the joy of doing business in the world these days and we address the problems as they come. Like the rumor I mentioned above.

Should you have a question, please don’t hesitate to address it. Reach out to us and I’ll attempt to answer it as soon as possible. We want everyone to have faith in our awards, we’re attempting to make them the best there is, and I think after seven years of doing this, we’re succeeding.

K’Anne Meinel, Awards Coordinator

Why didn’t I win?

Dear Author/Publisher,

You sent in your submission and you’re wondering why your book didn’t win, or at least get mentioned as a runner-up?  It could be because your book had a hidden part that you missed.  Our judges, didn’t miss it.  One reason could be that your name or other identifiers were included in your submission, unintentionally or otherwise.

We send the following information to each and every submission after they have paid, been accepted, and been assigned an author# and book# and tell them how to submit their book:

Books are to be submitted in PDF format in the following manner:

Set up your submission as though you were submitting an e-book to one of your distributors. Remove ALL references to the AUTHOR’S NAME, the BOOK’S TITLE, and the PUBLISHER. Nothing should remain that could identify the author.  This would include any reference to past or future books.

Please check within your ownership of your Word document program when you go to save the PDF that your name isn’t hidden.  You must remove your name entirely. Entries that violate this requirement will be disqualified, and there will be no refund of the entry fees paid. Your only identifying markings should be: your assigned author number, a dash, and your assigned book number.  Do not forget your synopsis!

As previously mentioned in the entry of this competition, you have been randomly assigned an author number for EACH entry. For example: If your assigned author number was 25 and your assigned book number was 84, then your PDF submission would be identified as Submission #25-84 as indicated in the example below. NO OTHER identifying markings are allowed within your submission. Inquiries regarding your submission should reference this unique submission number to assist us to identify you.

Example:

When you go to save your PDF, please make sure that there are NO identifying marks, see the mock-up below.

#3 can be especially sneaky if you own your own software to create the PDF.  Your name, when you purchased your software will show up automatically if you do not remove it.  Also, anyone who has edited your manuscript, your publisher, etc can have identifying marks and THIS does NEED to be removed so it isn’t rejected for cause.

It’s this last one (#3) that may be tripping you up and you don’t even know it.  Because of the nature of the awards, I can’t tell you that your submission was disqualified.  There is no ‘do over’ because what has been seen, can’t be unseen.

Our judges are fair and impartial, but if they see an author’s name, the book name, or the publisher, they have to take a screenshot and disqualify the entry. 

I believe this is fair for all involved as we continue to strive to keep the awards anonymous, safe, and legitimate for the lesfic community.

So please, scan your PDF before saving it, and make sure you’ve removed all identifying marks from your book!  We want your entries and we want them read by our judges.

K’Anne Meinel

Awards Director

Unsung heroes

On behalf of the 2022 Lesfic Bard Awards, I want to express my gratitude to our judges who gave selflessly of their valuable time to read the many, many entries we received this last year. 

Not only did they read the entries, they graded them using the system we devised that we feel is almost perfect for lesbian literature.  While the judges’ names can’t be announced, I want them to know how much we appreciate their efforts on behalf of all the authors who entered our awards.

We are delighted that many of the judges who served in 2022 have already committed to return in 2023 for our sixth year of the Lesfic Bard Awards. 

If you have published since January or are planning to publish in 2023, you will want to enter your book in our awards as quickly as possible as outlined on our website because we anticipate our judges will be especially busy as the year progresses, especially because we allow authors/publishers to enter novella’s as well as novels.

to everyone who participated in our fifth year, and we look forward to meeting and welcoming those who will participate in future awards. 

K’Anne Meinel, Awards Administrator

A humble Thank You

On behalf of the 2019 Lesfic Bard Awards, I want to express my gratitude to our judges who gave selflessly of their valuable time to read the many, many entries we received in our second year.  Not only did they read the entries, they graded them using a system we devised that we feel is particular to lesbian literature.  While the judges’ names cannot be announced, I want them to know how much we appreciate their efforts on behalf of all the authors who entered our awards.

We are delighted that many of the judges who served in 2019 have already committed to return in 2020 for our third year of the Lesfic Bard Awards.   We are always looking to add more judges to our stable of doctors, lawyers, teachers, authors, and other qualified judges.  If you feel you can commit the time and effort as well as the pleasure of reading lesbian literature this year, please apply here.

If you have published since January or are planning to publish in 2020, you will want to enter your book in our awards as quickly as possible as outlined here because we anticipate our judges will be especially busy as the year progresses, especially now that we have added the ability to enter novella’s as well as novels.

to everyone who participated in our second year, and we look forward to meeting and welcoming those who will participate in future awards.

Awards for 2019 will be announced on April 19, 2020.  Please watch this space.  If you haven’t already, please subscribe to the Lesfic Bard Awards News.

Sincerely,

K’Anne Meinel, Awards Administrator

2019 Thank you

We would like to thank everyone who entered our 2019 Lesfic Bard Awards, we are definitely pleased with the amount of entries that our judges are still reading.  We will be announcing the winners later this spring.  Watch this space for details!

So, you think starting an awards competition is easy?

Bahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

Okay, okay, let me catch my breath and wipe the tears from my eyes.  Oh my, I nearly wet myself.

I will admit, for years, I and other authors had GREAT ideas of how an awards competition should work.  Those ideas were suggested to some already established awards sites, but sadly, they were never implemented.  I thought, Well, if they won’t do it, maybe we should?  Since I wasn’t alone in these ideas, I got together with some friends, and after much research, we started the Lesfic Bard Awards.

Easy?  NO!  Time-consuming?  YES!  Worth it to give everyone a level playing field and see independents as well as publishing house authors given the same opportunity to win on their work’s merit?  YES!

As the administrator, I learned a lot about the lesbian literature (Lesfic) community in the last year or two, especially once we started posting about the awards.  I appreciate every author that took a chance on our blind judging system and entered the awards for our inaugural year, and I am grateful for all the positive support we received.  I hope the winners and the finalists feel truly recognized for the blood, sweat, and tears they poured into their works.

I may be prejudiced, but I feel the awards are beautiful.  When I received the original sample, I could not take my eyes off it.  I love our award, and I hope you get to see it in person someday.  The pictures don’t do it justice, but we are working on ways to improve and get the best photographs for the awards.

I am sincerely grateful for those who are already entering the 2019 awards’ season.  Please get your submissions in for the first cutoff, which is June 30, 2019.  You can enter here.

We are also always looking for more judges.  If you love to read and feel you may be qualified (read here for qualifications), you can apply here.

The Lesfic Bard Awards were so successful that we’ve also started an awards site for authors of gay literature.  It’s called the Gay Scribe Awards.  Please tell all your friends who write gay literature to check us out here.  We want to give everyone in the LGBT community of authors an opportunity to receive the recognition they so richly deserve.  As always, our unique blind entries and judging will give everyone a fair chance on either site.

People have asked how they can help spread the word about our awards.  First, we hope everyone will share the accolades for our awards’ winners and finalists and spread the love.  Second, we appreciate all the ideas that have been contributed, and we hope you will continue to send those in.  We do love to hear from you.  Most important of all, authors, please continue to write your fantastic stories of lesbian literature.

We look forward to receiving your 2019 entries, and we hope to see you in the winner’s circle soon!

Thank you again,

K’Anne Meinel

Awards Administrator

Thank you

On behalf of the 2018 Lesfic Bard Awards, we want to express our gratitude to the judges who gave selflessly of their valuable time to read the many entries we received in our first year.  Not only did they read the entries, they graded them using a system we devised that we feel is particular to lesbian literature.  While the judges’ names can’t be announced, we want them to know how much we appreciate their efforts on behalf of all the authors who entered our awards.

We are delighted that many of the judges who served in 2018 have already committed to return in 2019 for our second year of the Lesfic Bard Awards.

If you have published since January or are planning to publish in 2019, you will want to enter your book in our awards as quickly as possible as outlined here because we anticipate our judges will be very busy as the year progresses.

to everyone who participated in our inaugural year, and we look forward to meeting and welcoming those who will participate in future awards.

Awards for 2018 will be announced on May 5, 2019.  Please watch this space.