NOMINATE, NOMINATE, NOMINATE... LATER!!!!!

Friends, Romans, Country-men, lend me your ears...

Or sumfin'. I mean, it's a cool saying and why should I have to do all of the work around here?

I mean, I write about five thousand words a month on this blog. That's almost as much as a lot of indy authors write in a day. I'm clearly overworked and have no sense of irony.

Or sumfin'.

Look, I love all of you out there in cyberspace and I love the geeky people more than most but help me out here...

Listen, I understand that, once again, the Dragon Awards nominations ballots are available. I get that it's the only award truly given by the fans. (No, the Hugo Awards are not fan awards. They're given by a cabal of professionals and have intentionally run the fans out of the nominating process). I fully support what they're doing and love the fact that theirs is truly a trophy given to someone out of the love of the people who support the product. I even get the fact that they urge you to nominate early. I'm just asking you to wait.

I see you working. Yes you, out there in some other part of reality with the red face and smoke coming out of your ears.

Or sumfin'

You're trying to conflate this with an attempt to tell people to not nominate at all, but that's just not what it is.

You're trying to say that I'm denigrating the nomination process. I'm not and in fact I will release my list of nominations later this year.

I'm just using my towering perch to reach the masses of humanity..

Or sumfin'

 Look, I've received two emails recently thanking me for "all you do for the genre" and now I'm starting to suffer delusions of mediocrity. Any more of this and I'll start believing that this blog actually matters. I don't know if I can stand the ego boost that would give me. If I start thinking that I'm good at something life gets weird.

... To point out a simple fact:

Works first released between July 1, 2018 and June 30, 2019 are eligible for this year's award. Seriously. I totes stole that wording right off of the ballot. Yup, I'm a bad boy alright. I mean, that ballot could have been copyrighted. I'm a rebel!

Or sumfin'

What that also means is that any works published between now and June 30 will not be eligible for next year's award because eligibility for the 2020 Dragon Awards will start with works published on July 1, 2019.  So, if an award worthy work comes out between when you nominate and the end of the eligibility period, you don't get to nominate it. If enough of this happens, we could end up leaving out some people whose only crime was waiting until their product was ready to release it. That sucks.

Or sumfin'

Look, I'm not telling you who to nominate. I'm not telling you to avoid nominating something that has already been published. I'm just urging you to think about this:

Today's date is March 16. The end of the eligibility period is June 30.  That's three months and fourteen days away. That means that over twenty-five percent of the eligibility period is still left. That's a quarter of all the books, games, shows and movies that aren't even released to the public yet. None of us (unless you're an ARC recipient, of course) have seen them. You can't know how good something is, and thus whether it deserves an award if you haven't laid eyes up on it.

I mean, if you've got your mind made up in some categories, that's good. I know I'll be voting the most recent WoW expansion (Battle for Azeroth) for Best Video Game. I know I'll be voting Hell Spawn for Best Horror Novel, etc.

I'm just saying to give some time to people who are still hard at work on what they're doing. They deserve it and I, for one don't want to see someone rushing out product that's not ready just so that they can get it done before nominations start. We're all better off when creators take their time to get things right. No one likes their SF/F to suck. Especially me.

Or sumfin'

Now don't get me wrong.  I understand that a lot of creators and/or publishers have published lists early. That makes sense. There are people out there, The World's Most Awesome GF(TM) included, who buy everything on a nomination list and read/watch it before voting. There are others who may not buy everything but might not ever have heard of a particular creator before they get nominated. The Dragon Awards are not just an award, they're free marketing and they attract the attention of the target market for a lot of this stuff. It makes sense to try to get onto the ballot. And guys, I approve.

Publishing, whether it's books, movies/TV or games is a for-profit business. Publishers employ people who use the money to care for their families. Creators skip the middleman and use the money they make off of their work to feed their families directly. This is a good thing. We all need food in our bellies and a roof over our head and if getting their work nominated makes it easier to do that work...

Hell, I'd do it too. Seriously.

Or sumfin'.

And there might just be an ulterior motive behind my belief that the Dragon Awards should do an award for Best Fan Site. Maybe that makes me a bad guy, but at least I'm an honest bad guy.

Here's the thing though: The marketing is the marketing. One nomination is one nomination. Think about this, too: The list isn't released until after the end of the nomination period. So, even if you are helping people to promote their product and feed their families, you're not doing a better job of it by nominating earlier. It's a wash either way.  And one that doesn't even have a harpoon sticking out of it's stomach.

Or sumfin'

 So yes, send your nominations soaring into the Dragon Awards like a leaf on the wind...

But do it three months from now and not today. Because later works deserve consideration too.

Or sumfin'

And no, I'm not including a link to the ballot now. I'll do that when I post my picks in three months time. Because I practice what I preach and I'm not locking anyone out.


Some works that have been nominated for Dragon Awards past are listed below: