[Contest] Golden Book Awards

[batgirl]

I'm on a book chat forum that gets spammed every now and then. Today the following post by a first-time poster appeared, in response to a question by another first-time poster:

I would suggest you do apply for awards. Winning can make your book sell much faster, as well as give you credibility, and leverage in negotiations with publishers.
The only 2010 awards left are the Golden Book Awards and the National Book Awards.
http://www.goldenbookawards.com
http://www.nationalbook.org
They are expensive, so maybe only apply for one. The national awards get pretty crowded with competition, if you need an easier win you are better off with the Golden Book Awards. Either way though you are going up against authors like me, so you are probably in trouble either way
Best of luck to you!

The juxtaposition of the National Book Foundation and the Golden Book Award was amusing. It was a clear attempt at legitimacy-by-association, but comparing the two sites makes it painfully clear that one is legit and one isn't.
Golden Book Awards charges $125 to enter and if you win you get a TROPHY and STICKERS. Oh, and listed in a CATALOG, but apparently not on the website.

Apologies if this has been spotted before, but I couldn't find it with a quick search.
-Barbara

[batgirl]

Just an update. The sock-posts were pulled from the book forum, but another forumite pointed out that the boosters have been busy elsewhere, with Holupka, Craig(ster), Maggie Fields and Elizabeth/Liz Taylor appearing to discuss awards and recommend Golden Book Awards.

On bookrabbit.com, Maggie posted:
I've been a publishing consultant for two years now with Author Solutions. I know a lot about helping author to promote their books. The 2010 Golden Book Awards are the last 2010 book awards that will be open to all independent publishers. But don't take my word for it. Check it out yourself.

Simon Grayson, playing devil's advocate, says:
Okay I looked at the website and researched the Golden Book Awards. It "seems" legit, the guy behind the whole thing is Jonathon Goodman who used to be a big shot editor at Harcourt Publishing. I still don't trust them, I have never heard of them and I have been writing for YEARS.

Simon is obviously much cleverer than me, because I read through the whole skimpy website, and found no names of founders, judges, or previous winners.
There is this confidence-inspiring note in the FAQ, though:
Books are judged purely for their content. Note that poor spelling and grammar may affect some of the scoring due to distraction, and decreased entertainment, which can influence the judging criteria.
All of our judges are publishers, writers, editors, and/or other book publishing industry professionals.
Our judges will remain anonymous in order to retain the veracity of the awards.

So this may be connected with Author Solutions, or it may be its own poetry.com-style scheme. Maybe Simon can investigate that for me?
-Barbara

[CaoPaux]

Someone's busy adding it to Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special...s/Superman2971

There's already 1,001 "Golden Book" awards around the world -- including one for cattle breeding -- so the only chance this one has of distinguishing itself would be who/what the judges are. Presuming, of course, one can get past the outrageous cost and sock-puppet campaign.

[Momento Mori]

The things to consider before entering a competition like this are:

1. Have you ever heard of the Golden Book Awards before receiving/seeing the spam? If you can't name at least one winner, then it's probably not worth entering.

2. For any competition to have worth, the judges should be identifiable up front and should preferably be known names. Saying that your judges are "industry professionals" is a meaningless statement unless you can actually say who they are and what their expertise is. Advertising a competition when the judges are not already in place is not a heartening sign.

3. How much is the entry fee? Here the $125 is steep and that's only for entry into one category. The fact that they're charging an extra $100 for each additional category suggests sharp practice.

4. Where competitions/awards carry weight in the publishing industry, you can expect your publisher to be putting your book forward as a matter of course. The fact that the entry rules for this competition envisage authors putting themselves forward is not a good sign because it suggests they're targeting and looking at self-published/vanity published authors rather than the commercial published industry.

5. What are the judging criteria? The fact that here the competition rules have to point out the need for good spelling and grammar is again a sign that it's targeting the self/vanity published and is not a good sign.

6. Who is the competition open to? Many competitions are restricted to books published in certain territories or languages within a set period of time. This competition is open to any English published book from "late 2009" (no guidelines as to what this is) or 2010. It's also, critically, open to unpublished manuscripts - further devaluing the worth of the competition.

7. What are the categories? Most competitions will have restricted criteria for what they will consider (e.g. the Hugos will look at SF and F, the Booker primarily looks at works of literary fiction). The Golden Book Awards has 20 categories that basically cover every genre and subject, including such niche areas as "dystopian" (which I would have thought comes under science fiction or possibly fantasy), "western" and "war and military".

8. What's the prize? Ideally, a competition/award should carry either a cash prize or prestige within the writing/publishing community that it represents. For example, the Booker carries a £50,000 prize. Winning a Costa category will earn you £5,000 (and £25,000 if you're the overall winner). Winning the Bram Stoker will mean you're recognised by the horror community. Winning the World Fantasy Award will mean you're recognised in the fantasy comunity. The Golden Book Awards (in return for your $125 minimum entry fee) give you a sticker and publicity on the website that they've had to spam to emails/message boards. That doesn't strike me as a good return for the outlay.

All in all, I don't think there's anything here that makes it worth the time, effort or cash.

MM

[batgirl]

I wish I could copy & paste the above list directly into the brains of any naive and hopeful writer who's seen the sock-spam and taken it at face value. On a cheerful note, they seem to have been spotted as socks and deleted at least half the time.

Still a bit curious whether Author Solutions is behind it. Oh well.
-Barbara

[CaoPaux]

Site's gone, and I'm not finding any announcement of winner(s).