The Rainbow Awards: My Pink Glasses Perspective

[reviews_and_ramblings]

This is a post in defense of the people who is voting and the authors who are competing, not in defense of me or the Rainbow Awards. I'm living probably in a pink glasses bowl, but friends I read, don't worry I read all you wrote and I pondered.

I'm looking at how people is voting and it's true, there are some books that are having a lot of votes... but then, if you go to the author's page, or read around, you see that the author is loved, and people want to help him/her. This is popularity and so yes, it's right to have that votes... I had authors tell me to not consider some votes, since they were "strange".

The authors are asking to people to vote for them? And, sorry, but what is wrong with that? How different is it from all the contest out there? Why you have to lift you nose and look upon to them? I had an author who wrote in his blog to vote for him BUT also to vote for the books above him, since they are good books: he has a slim chance to win, asking to people to vote for other books was for him like a vote "suicide". I had another author be pleased to be second in Phase 2, with few votes to the first, so with a lot of chances to be first and going to Phase 3 and she asked to vote for another book!

Phase 1 and Phase 2 of the Rainbow Awards is a popularity contest. POPULARITY. Meaning that, if an author has a lot of fan, or he/she is able to arise votes posting in a blog or a forum of twitter or facebook, good for him/her. His/her book will be first in the popularity contest and then the book will be read by the Jury, and friends, MY jury is good. So no, no fat chance for a book that it's not worth to win the Rainbow Awards. Doesn't matter if it received 1000 votes in the popularity contest, the book has to be read and judge. All right the jury is not foolproof, but almost. I'm asking to the judges to state beforehand if they are not comfortable with something, I want them to judge the book, the writing style and the story, not the content.

Please note that ONLY the first book for each category will pass to Phase 3, we have 16 Categories/SubCategories, so 16 books from Phase 1 and 2 will pass to Phase 3. You are right, if there are socket puppy votes, one, two or even three of that books shouldn't rightly be there, but I have also 20 books the Jury is choosing right know, and they are choosing independently from the popularity contest. So don't worry, all the worthy books will be in Phase 3, and no, till the end of Phase 2 I'm not saying the Jury's Choices.

Yes, things could have be done in a different way, BUT this is the first year, we are trying to build something that will last, and we are learning how to do that. Next year, maybe we will use something better than my LJ to do that, for now, this is it.

So friends, be good, vote and be happy, and remember, I'm monitoring you ;-)

Comments

[cornflake2912.livejournal.com]

I love how you organize everything :) I hardly have time to read everything but I follow. Thank you!

[yachay.livejournal.com]

The voting is so evil. I was ready to cry when choosing who to vote. "I love this author, but that authors book was just wow.. I didn't enjoy this much, but the interesting plot was genius.. But this is the one I originally nominated... OH NO, THIS ONE IS MY ALL-TIME FAVORITE. *brain-freeze* "
Took me hours before I was ready to vote, and even then, after I was done, I got regrets XD

Anyway, I don't mind authors asking for votes, it is only natural, and ofc they have right to advertise their works, and should do this too.
I just think that people should vote for the book, and not for the author. I had to vote against my favorite author in one category, because I enjoyed someone elses book more. This is a popularity contest, but it also should be a literature-award, like it was meant to be imo. :)

[(Anonymous)]

I'm a little confused now about how the round 3 is going to be. You said one book from each category goes to round 3. Does this mean only ONE of over 100 contemporary books goes to a panel? I thought there was to be one final award in each category and that the panel would be comparing the top popular books to find the best one in each category (perhaps top 5 or 10 from each genre would be finalists). How you are explaining now, a finalist really is just popularity and not a genuine selection of a top paranormal or a top contemporary book.

I find it hard to understand how you can have all the categories competing against each other for only one final award. One paranormal vs one historical, etc for just ONE award? Did I misunderstnd how this is going to work?

I would also like to ask why you have the votes public to all? Ballots are generally private and it's not fair to the voters that authors can see who we voted for. I think some people will have hard feelings or more people will choose to be anonymous to avoid having their vote choices made public.

[dubious-virtue.livejournal.com]

Bless you, Elisa. I can only imagine how much work this contest is making for you. I appreciate all your efforts. :)

[rowenasudbury.livejournal.com]

I know that left to a popularity vote my book will not make it to phase three for the simple reason that I don't have a lot of friends. That's not self-deprecation, it's just the truth. My book came out July 2009, and before it did I don't think anyone aside from my roughly 30 LJ friends knew me from a hole in the ground. So, it's all good, and I still applaud you for undertaking this task. I'm also excited for the people who are doing so well in the voting :)

Sometimes it's nicer to see the world through rose-colored glass, so I share in that with you.

[pd-singer.livejournal.com]

And the newbie thanks you for doing it.

[lee-rowan.livejournal.com]

I thought Round 2 was problematic with the breakdown - it looks as though some really good books will be eliminated because they were in the top rank... which doesn't make sense to me--the best books should be finalists. I'd rather have seen one big pool, with voting for the top X number that would go to the next round. Most of the top books were, in my opinion, the best ones.

As for asking for votes... I know many excellent writers who are very modest about asking for votes and not very good at self-promotion. And I have seen many writers who are adequate at best doing well because they promote much better than they write. But this is often the case in politics, as well.

I prefer the system used by Epic and Lambda -- books nominated by writers and publishers, and judging done by those who read the books. Running a "people's choice" category would balance it.

On the other hand, yes, this IS the first time for this contest, and first attempts are seldom perfect. I'm sure there are things you could have done better or might do differently next time, but the fact that you're doing it at all is FANTASTIC.