THE IMPORTANCE OF ON-LINE AWARDS

By now, many visitors to the blog have read that I won the 2016 New Apple E-book Award for Humor and Horror through New Apple Literary. It’s an important win in that it was decided by a jury panel. For winning these awards, I will receive from New Apple a year-long promotional campaign free of charge. I can’t thank them enough! (Especially you, Becca. You’re a doll!)

Will lightning strike twice? I was also nominated in the humor category for a 2016 Summer Indie Book Award “SIBA” “Humor” sponsored by Metamorph Publishing. Voting began midnight Central U.S. Time on the morning of September 1 and will continue until midnight Central, September 11.

Unlike other awards competitions I’ve been privileged to participate in, the SIBA allows multiple voting inside the same category enabling voters to show their support for all of their favorite authors. I think that’s kind of cool, especially since a number of author friends are also competing and I didn’t want to choose one over another.

But what kind of system allows multiple votes over a series of days, a dedicated pollster may ask. Isn’t that like voting for all candidates from all political parties once in the voting booth?

I don’t believe it is.

There is a great deal of value to be derived from an award like SIBA. For one thing, it forces shy and retiring authors like me out of my shell and into a marketing headspace. Tweets, blip ads, blogs, and micro blogs on Facebook become very important in getting the word out that we’re actually nominated. It also gets the juices flowing mightily in terms of tags and loglines. All the material generated for the ‘campaign’ can be used in other promotions. The point is that they got generated.

The other thing an on line award with open voting does is show if a writer and book has a following; more importantly, if that following was attained through creative use of social media. More and more, I hear stories of jobs won or lost because of the candidates’ social media presence. For those seeking out the next break out author, on-line poll results might be an area of interest.

I, for one, get pretty excited around awards season because it gets me talking; gets me connected. A Toronto Sun newspaper article by Aaron D’Andrea (September 1, 2016; p. 3) stressed that the purpose of social media was not to bombard followers with a one-way flow of information but to engage and interact.

I will be asking friends and fans to vote for me, but I will offer them something in return: a blog, a joke, a story, a picture… and my heart-felt gratitude.

Gods willing, maybe I’ll generate enough numbers to attract the eye of someone looking for that kind of thing.

From the #Writerverse,

Adult, Unapologetic and wholly cognizant,

I am