The Rainbow Awards: Awards Guidelines

[reviews_and_ramblings]

ELIGIBILITY

- The book must be published between September 2009 and August 2010 (both months included).
- Self-published books are eligible (print on demand publishers, like Lulu.com and Smashwords, are included in the "self-published" umbrella).
- Ebook editions of previously published print books are not eligible. First time print book editions of previously published ebooks are eligible. A book that has been republished by a different publisher after its initial publication is not eligible. A book that was previously self-published by the author, and then republished by a publisher after its initial publication is eligible.



SUBMISSION PROCESS

- Books submitted for consideration will be accepted between March 1 and September 15. Winners will be announced in December.
- A book can be submitted only by its author or by its publisher. Submit a book in the category most appropriate: please indicate Gender, Genre and Length (i.e. Gay / Contemporary Fiction / Novel or Lesbian / Fantasy Fiction / Short Stories Collection).
- The commision can include some books at their own expenses, if they are eligible, especially in those categories with not enough submissions.
- Books are submitted in electronic version (PDFs); exceptions will be considered (please contact me). Submitting the ebook, authors/publishers agree for its distribution with the only purpose of being read by the commission (from 3 to 5 judges). Please, even if you know I already have the ebook, submit it again: it's recommended but not mandatory, that the PDF file has some kind of protection, like a specific disclaimer or similar.
- No submission fees required.

CATEGORIES

- A book can be submitted in only one category.
- If a category receives fewer than five (5) submissions, the category will not be active in this awards cycle. The submitted books will be reassigned to another category if appropriate.
- Gender Category: Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender
- Genre Category: Coming of Age / Young Adult Fiction; Contemporary Fiction; Erotica Contempirary Fiction; Fantasy Fiction; Sci-Fiction/Futuristic Fiction; Historical Fiction; Mystery / Thriller Fiction; Paranormal / Horror Fiction; Non Fiction
- Length Category: Novel (>41,000 Words), Novella (between 18,000 and 41,000 Words) only in Collection (2 or more collected together), Short Stories (<18,000 Words) only in Collection (4 or more collected together), basically a single submission has to be of more than 41.000 Words. Exception will be considered if a single category will have not enough submissions.

JURY

- Judges will start to read books in May; reading period will finish in November (included).
- Each judge will read a minimum of 5 books, with an average of 7. Authors/Publishers/Editors will not read books in categories where a their own book is submitted.
- Each book will be judge using three different criteria: Setting Development, Characters Development and Writing Style. From 1 to 10 point for each criteria.
- Judges will receive only the ebooks they have to read. (PDF files)
- Judges will have to indicate what categories they are not comfortable to read.
- To be a judge, please contact me; Authors/Publishers/Editors/Reviewers/Readers are welcomed, if I don't know you (you are not in my friends list, we are not on the same groups,...), please provide an introduction and some sort of reference for being eligible to judge a LGBT themed book.

Permission to repost granted (and welcomed)

For submissions or questions, please contact the LJ owner at the address you find in the profile, or leave a comment and I will send you a PM

Current Submissions: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/993937.html

Comments

[lee-rowan.livejournal.com]

Is there an 'anthology' category? I'd love to submit I Do Two (it's nearly 100K total) but don't see a category for collections.

[elisa-rolle.livejournal.com]

There is not a specifically category for anthology. If the theme of the anthology is unique, than you can submit in the specific category, instead if it's mixed, you can submit in the Category most influent; i.e. if the 60% of the stories in the Anthology is Gay and Contemporary, you can submit in the Gay Contemporary category (60K words are more than the 41K of low limit); if it's 50% Gay Historical and 50% Gay Paranormal, you can choose one of the two categories (not both, 50K words are again more than the 41K of low limit). Only exception: if there is a low presence of, for example, Lesbian Contemporary, less than the 40%, please don't submit in that Category. To summarize, if there is more than a 40% of presence of a specific category, you can submit to that category.

[lee-rowan.livejournal.com]

It's very mixed, which was the point. Ah, well. Too bad--an anthology is not anything like a novel, and putting them together is apples and oranges.

[elisa-rolle.livejournal.com]

Yes, I know, but I have really trouble to fill the categories as it's if I start to double them for novels and anthologies, then there will be really too much to fill.