About their competition (The IRDA) ...
I've communicated with Amy directly about this and I can state that any book receiving less than a four star review rating is immediately cut from the competition. Your book is judged within its sub category by your reviewer at the review stage. The much touted panel of judges do not get involved in the judging process until the sub category winners are decided. To do that, you realistically need to get a 5 star review rating. This is of course totally backwards. The judges are merely one of the prizes for winning.
From the IRDA page: "The winners from each sub-category (in addition to the top winners), will also receive [...] exposure to a panel of judges who can make a difference in your book’s success." They should be referred to as Guest Readers that might read a few books from the list of winners. As backwards as this sounds, it still fits with what is stated on the woefully misleading, but not technically wrong IRDA FAQ:
"Will all those impressive judges actually be reading submitted books?
Every one of our judges have agreed to read–and judge–submitted books. ..."
Not EVERY submitted book and not necessarily YOUR submitted book. The correct question and answer should have been:
"By entering, will my submitted book be read by any of those impressive judges?
No. Not unless it wins its sub category."
Not many people would enter if they knew that. At the most, these 'judges' have a hand in deciding the overall winner of the IRDA from the field of category winners. But the reality for the vast majority of entrants is that they will have paid an extra $50 and received nothing back in return, apart from a long shot hope that someone other than an IR staffer will so much as glance at it.
