LGBTQ Award: Setting rules

[reviews_and_ramblings]

So no one told me I'm fool, and it's already a good thing, and more or less the suggestions I received are in line with my first idea. Only one people replied that my categories are all erotica, and so they don't have books to submit: I actually went to re-read those categories, and where some of them are probably erotica (BDSM, Menages...), I don't think they are ALL erotica: Fantasy? Coming of Age? Silver Romance? are those erotica?

I don't know, I'm not much for the idea to create erotica and non erotica categories, it would be probably difficult to set a range to part what it's in one or the other. But if you think it's better, let me know. So basically, let me summarize all.

First phase: an initial round to determine the candidatures. I will create a single post for each category, I will prepopulate each category with the titles I think will fit in them or that people will submit me, plus I will leave people in the comment section to add titles for the first week. Always in the comment section, people will vote the title. The same person can vote more books in the same category (obviously they can vote more books in different categories), only please don't vote ALL the books of the category. I have faith in you that you will not cheat (BTW I will check the IP address, you can vote even if you haven't a LJ account). The voting phase will be open for 1 month. At the end of the month I will draw the first 10 in each category.

ETA: To pre-fill the categories with the books you would like to see in them, just comment here or write to me in private. It's possible to candidate the same book in more categories if you think it will fit. Next Saturday I will post a blog for each category with the already prefilled titles and the voting phase 1 will start. I will accept late candidatures for the first week, and then I will close the categories.

Second phase: a poll for each category with the final 10 titles. 2 weeks to vote and at the end of the 2 weeks, the winner for each category. At this point we already have virtual winners, 1 for each category.

Third and last phase: a selected jury of readers (or authors without eligible books in the categories they have to read) will read 3 books out of the final list and give them a vote (range from 1 to 10): I hope to have enough jurors to have a book read by 3 different persons. A month to read all the books and at the end of the month we will have the final winner.

ETA: I'm accepting volunteers for being in the jury. Please leave a comment here or contact me with a private message.

And now the categories:

Fiction
1) Contemporary
2) Fantasy
3) Futuristic
4) Historical
5) Paranormal / Horror
6) Mystery / Thriller 
7) Coming of Age / Young Adult
8) Comedy

Non Fiction
1) General Non Fiction
2) Biography / Memoir
3) History
4) Poetry
5) Travel

Special Category: New Author

All the categories are parted in Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transexual and Queer. Please, help me in filling the categories other than G (my field), otherwise those categories will have problem to survive. For the 2009 LGBTQ Rainbow Awards I will consider ebooks or print books released between September 2008 (included) and August 2009 (Included). I'm not against the idea to consider also re-releases (maybe a previous ebook released in print, or viceversa; or a reprint of the same book from a different publisher).

At the end of the first week, we will reconsider the Categories: if a category has not enough votes or candidatures (I will set a minimum of 5 titles per categories), I will withdraw it from the competion, or at least will try to compact more categories in one.

I will save the names of all people who joined in one of the voting phase. For every voting phase there will be one (or more depending on the availability of prizes) "small" winner among the voting crow: a small award is, for example, a gift certificate from a publisher to download an ebook. At the end of all the voting phases, I will draw a reader winner of a gift basket with ebooks / gift certificates and print books donated by publishers / authors: the winner will have to directly contact the authors who donate print books (publishers and authors are totally free to choose to donate only ebooks). Please consider that, if the winner is not in the same country of the author, it's an own choice of the author to send a print book, he/she can choose to revert to an ebook. The publishers / online booksellers / review sites who already gave their disponibility are (in alphabetical order):

 

 

 

 

 

 



Please let me know if you think some of them should not be there, or if I forgot something.

Sooo: the first phase will start next week. October for candidating, November for skimming, December for selecting and January for reading the final books. First week of February the winner!

Again, I'm totally open to suggestion on all of above.

Comments

[svilleficrecs.livejournal.com]

I might have missed this in an earlier post, but what are the cut off publication dates for this? Anything published in 2009? 08/09, or all time?

[elisa-rolle.livejournal.com]

I was thinking from September 2008 to August 2009? Since I hope to start in October, people will have all September to read books and candidate them in one of more categories. Do you think it is right? Elisa

[yachay.livejournal.com]

I think that time sounds good. Also, this whole thing sounds good. There are lot of genres, but I have read something from every one of them. :)

[elisa-rolle.livejournal.com]

So you are ready to vote! Let's spend this week to finalize all thing and then GO. Elisa

[storm-grant.livejournal.com]

Can we have a humour category?

I think it might be a theme rather than a genre, ie: humourous paranormal or humourous contemporary.

And thank you so much for doing this. Trust Elisa to do something positive when the rest of us are just... discussing it. ;-D

[elisa-rolle.livejournal.com]

Yes, of course ;-) Adding just now. Elisa

[storm-grant.livejournal.com]

Yay! Thank you.

[mroctober.livejournal.com]

It seems like all these categories are more apt for erotic fiction or romance. So this award ignores non-fiction? What about more literary work? It seems like only a couple Lethe titles would be apt.

[mroctober.livejournal.com]

Also, I assume the judges will not have any involvement with other presses - or have work nominated that year. Otherwise, one could say the jury is not impartial.

[elisa-rolle.livejournal.com]

Help me Steve, you know that I have a romance background. What genres - themes you think I should add. A general Non-fiction is enough? Or Do I have to add more sub-theme? And I realized that I missed the Mystery genre, right?

[elisa-rolle.livejournal.com]

The jury is still totally in developing. I was thinking more to readers (non authors or publishers), or at least non authors with an eligible book that year. I'd really be glad to have help in this matter. Elisa

[yachay.livejournal.com]

I think that having a jury where majority would be just your average obsessed readers, would be nice. Ofc there should be one or two of those who know more about the business, but letting 'normal' readers participate in this level would be nice.
After all, who are the writers writing to, if not their readers, and who are the biggest judges when it comes to literature? :)

And naturally it would be only fair that if there will be authors in the jury, their work would not be nominated. Or that they would not judge the genre where their work is nominated. Uh, am I making sense?

[elisa-rolle.livejournal.com]

Yes, it makes sense. I will probably let people candidate themself to be in the jury, like the early reviewers in LibraryThing. I don't think we will arrive to the final list with more than 10 books, I hope they will be 5, and so the reader should be willing to read the books in a month. Elisa

[mroctober.livejournal.com]

Yes, you missed Mystery.

As far as non-fiction, you might want to consider the broader ones:

Biography/Memoir
History
Inspiration/Religious
Poetry
Travel

[elisa-rolle.livejournal.com]

All right, I will add all of them. Then, maybe we need to consider if it has sense to do a Fiction and a Non Fiction award, since I don't know how easy or right it's to have them all together. Elisa

[pandorasvase.livejournal.com]

I really like your idea, count on me for anything :)

[elisa-rolle.livejournal.com]

Thank you, I will for sure need to contact some people in the future, and I will add your name to the "helpers" ;-) Elisa

[alex-beecroft.livejournal.com]

Just IMO, I would think it would be better to separate erotica out from romance, because what erotica is aiming to do is different from what romance is aiming to do. If you've got a book which has stock characters and a flimsy plot that makes no sense, but the book is scorching hot, then it is good erotica, even though it's bad romance. Equally something like Charlie Cochrane's "Lessons" series is excellent romance, but scarcely erotic at all. Mixing the two things together can end up being unfair on both.

Maybe the problem of how to decide which category a book belongs in can be solved by letting the author decide whether they want to enter their book into Erotica or Romance?

[elisa-rolle.livejournal.com]

But so or I don't have theme, or I have to double all the theme for two, to allow Romance and Erotica. And then, a non Romance or Erotica novel (like a Mystery) that has a theme other than Mystery inside, can't submit? It's a drastic decision, but if I reduce the category and left basically only the genre, and then add a Romance and an Erotica genre... Could it work? Elisa

[alex-beecroft.livejournal.com]

I think that would work, and might even simplify things, particularly if you're adding non fiction as well. The categories have the potential to be a bit confusing (is False Colors a Genre: Historical, Theme: Military, or a Genre: Historical, Theme: Breeches Ripper for example.)

I guess what you could do is have the major genres of Mystery, SF/F, Western, Non-Fiction, Romance and Erotica, and then have the Romance and Erotica genres each separated into categories of historical, contemporary, paranormal etc, and not worry about breaking it down any more than that.

[elisa-rolle.livejournal.com]

All right, I compacted the category and divided the the Romance in "simple" romance and erotica. One doubt: for Western, you mean the Historical Western Romance, usually in contraposition to the Regency (or UK based) Historical Romance? Elisa

[sacchig.livejournal.com]

Is this supposed to be all flavors of GLBT, or just m/m?

You may have mentioned this previously, but it might be as well to stipulate that any category that gets fewer than, say, 5 (or any number of your choice) nominations will not be included.

If you think it wouldn't diminish the appeal of the gift basket, I'd be happy to offer a lesbian erotica anthology.

[elisa-rolle.livejournal.com]

No it's a LGBT Award, so lesbian fiction is more than welcome. I asked help since I'm not skilled in that field, and, at first, I was thinking to not divide Lesbian / Gay / Bisexual / Transexual. What do you think? Is it possible or it's better to duplicate all the category in three, Lesbian / Gay / Bisexual-Transexual?

And yes, if a category has not enought candidates, I will compact it in another category, if possible, or delete it (I hope not). And thank you for the offer of an anthology, I will add your name to the list of the author who will contribute to the gift basket.

[upstart-crow.livejournal.com]

Hi there! Just saw a link to this post (I guess I missed it yesterday). I'm glad to see another award for LGBT books out there, as I don't think at this point we can have too many :).

I would be happy to give a hard copy or PDF of my poetry memoir The Memory Palace (which is largely about coming out as bisexual in Utah), if you are looking for these. :)

[mroctober.livejournal.com]

Well, the problem with combining G work with L work with B work (and so on) is that many of the readers of your LJ may be more interested in male-oriented fiction, so the lesbian fans get drowned out. That's why on the Lammies they separate many of the categories.