Still more on the Dragon Awards

Having a look around the Website for the awards, I’m thinking they decided on this fairly quickly and galloped off in all directions. There are type-os on the Website and it’s not the easiest thing to track down info on who, what, when and where. I’m wondering about the system that’s going to collate the nominations, too, and how much validity there will be in the process. Still, DragonCon is used to dealing with 70K diverse people in skimpy party costumes every year. Presumably they have the resources to do this.

The process is interesting. Their Candidate FAQ suggests that authors should encourage their fans to vote for their works. Does this mean the writer with the biggest fan base will win? The writer with the highest profile? The novel with the biggest publisher behind it? Will writers now campaign like presidential candidates for the Dragon Award? Will there be punch-outs at the primaries?

Sorry, getting a little carried away there. Still, I’ve already seen Jim Butcher and Patricia Briggs mentioned as likely contenders. Theoretically, this also seems to be opening the gate for the sort of rogue, “midlist” author who is shut out of traditional publishing but still highly popular, to not only get on the ballot, but maybe to win. There are also early grumblings about the likelihood this will become an award bought by marketing dollars. We’ll see how it falls out.