Awards

Awards and Sales

~ Cheryl ~ 11 Comments

Listening to the Coode Street Podcast this morning, I heard Gary mention that, as far as we know, the Hugo is the only award that causes any noticeable effect on book sales. A week ago I would have agreed with him, despite this based entirely on anecdata.

You see, anecdata is all we have. No one does exit polls at bookstores to ask customers why they bought a particular book. We do know, however, that large numbers of people — from Gary & Jonathan to Neil Gaiman to myself — claim to have bought books in their youth specifically because those books were Hugo winners. There’s sufficient mass of anecdata for us to believe that some effect occurred, though we have no idea of the real size.

These days, however, we also have epos data. That’s electronic point of sale, to those of you not in the IT or retail industries. It isn’t accessible to everyone, but publishers do get it, and they are sometimes willing to share.

At Alt.Fiction last weekend I was on a panel about the value of awards. With me on the panel was Tom Hunter, the administrator of the Arthur C. Clarke Award. Tom said that he has seen epos data showing that, these days, winning the Clarke has a significant positive effect on epos sales. In other words, when news of the Clarke result goes public, significant numbers of people go out any buy the winning book.

I said “these days” advisedly, because this effect has only been observable in the past two years. That, I am sure, is down to the sterling work that Tom has done promoting the Clarke Award and getting it covered by major media outlets from SFX to The Guardian.

And that’s the point I want to make here. The Hugo is famous primarily because it was the first (and for several years pretty much the only) award for science fiction and fantasy. These days we have lots of awards. We are almost as fond of them as the romance people, and probably for very similar reasons. In order for an award to be of any use in such a crowded market, it has to be effectively promoted, and it has to be respected. This isn’t easy to do, but Tom has proved it is possible. Hopefully it is a lesson that WSFS will learn, and not continue to try to rein in Hugo marketing least the “wrong sort of fan” be encouraged to vote.

By the way, Gary and Jonathan have lots of interesting things to say. I particularly want to endorse their praise for Lucy Sussex. Here’s my review of her previous collection.

Two Award Nominees

~ Cheryl ~ 3 Comments

One of the people I got to meet for the first time at Alt.Fiction last weekend was Helen Marshall who is an editor for ChiZine Publications. They are a Canadian small press, and Helen is Canadian, but chance has relocated her to England and hence to conventions.

I’m always pleased to make personal contact with people whose books I sell, but ChiZine is particularly notable right now because the company has two shiny new award nominees.

Firstly The Thief of Broken Toys, a novella by Tim Lebbon, is a finalist in the British Fantasy Awards.

In addition Chimerascope by Douglas Smith is a finalist in the Sunburst Awards (Canada’s answer to the Arthur C. Clarke Award).

I don’t have time to read every book I stock, so I’m always pleased to find that other people have decided the books I am selling are really good.

Locus Awards Live?

~ Cheryl

So, here I am back home. It took rather longer than expected, because my flight from Stockholm was almost an hour late landing, resulting in my missing the last train home. Many thanks to my back-up plan, Jen and Gideon, for rescuing me (and My Little Space Pony, of course).

Not that I have much respite, because on Friday I’ll be off to Derby for Alt.Fiction. I’ll remind you about my panels there tomorrow, but the thing I want to talk about here is a semi-official event that will probably take place in the bar on Saturday night.

While we are busy in Derby, the Locus Awards will get handed out in Seattle. The nice folks at Locus have asked about the possibility of a CoverItLive event, and Alex has confirmed that there is good Internet connectivity in The Quad, so it should be possible. The ceremony will start around 10:00pm on Saturday. If you are at Alt.Fiction you should be able to follow things on your own devices, or by peeking over my shoulder. There are UK writers in all of the long and short fiction categories so hopefully there will be a lot of interest.

The show will probably be hosted on the Locus website. I’ll provide a link as soon as I have one.

Oh, and My Little Space Pony will finally get to meet his owner on Saturday afternoon.

All of which should give Tom Hunter and I plenty to talk about in the Awards panel on Sunday afternoon.

No Queers Here, Guv

~ Cheryl ~ 1 Comment

Remember the Green Carnation Prize? Well over at The Bookseller Simon Savidge reveals that he’s having difficulty getting submissions from several publishers because of the need for the author to identify as LGBT.

Clearly this is a complex issue. Some authors may not wish to publicly out themselves, in some cases for very good reasons. But equally it appears that there are publishers who do not want their authors winning prizes for being queer, because that would be bad for business, so they think.

The Lammys have problems like this too, and one of the ways around it is to widen eligibility to accept books that contain LGBT content, because then the jury can call really good books in without having to get publisher permission. You can also talk to the writers to see if they will publicly ask their publishers to submit them. But somehow I’m not at all surprised that UK publishers are being coy in this respect. What one does in private is one’s own affair, old chap, but one doesn’t talk about it in public, don’t you know?

The Green Carnation Prize

~ Cheryl ~ 6 Comments

I posted about this on SF Awards Watch yesterday. It is a relatively new UK-based prize for fiction and memoirs by LGBT people. While it is a general fiction prize, the people behind it say they are very very happy to receive SF/F/H works as submissions. There’s no Booker-style snobbery here. They will probably be looking for more of a literary style, but we have no shortage of people who can do that, and it would be a shame if we didn’t submit. There’s a real opportunity to get some recognition here.

I note also that the jury is quite interesting. Stella Duffy, people!

You do have to get your publisher to submit your book, and I know from experience with the Lammys that this can be difficult, but it isn’t impossible. Cat Valente, after all, won a Lammy. I see no reason why she can’t win this too. Night Shade people, if you are reading this…

I should point out here that although the prize is UK-based, they tell me that they are happy to accept books as long as they are readily available in the UK. I know Night Shade get books into Waterstones.

More information about the prize is available on SFAW and on the prize’s official website.

Clarkesworld: Home of Great Art

~ Cheryl ~ 2 Comments

One of the things I love about working for Clarkesworld is the quality of covers that Neil manages to find, often from artists in far-flung corners of the world. You may remember that a Clarkesworld cover won the Chesley Award for Best Magazine in 2009. Last year we had a nominee again. Sadly it didn’t win, but we were beaten by an Asimov’s cover by John Picacio, so I have no complaints there.

This year’s Chesley nominees have just been announced. There are six of them, and three, yes three, are from Clarkesworld. Here they are:

“Honeycomb” by Julie Dillon (Issue 48)

Honeycomb - Julie Dillon

“Warm” by Sergio Rebolledo (Issue 40)

Warm - Sergio Rebolledo

“Soulhunter” by Andrey Lazarev (Issue 50)

Soulhunter - Andrey Lazarev

Click through on the pictures for bigger versions.

I am so proud. Best of luck to all three.

Lammys Sale – Last Day

~ Cheryl ~ 4 Comments

The Lambda Literary Awards are presented at a ceremony in New York tonight. I’m very much keeping my fingers crossed for Sandra McDonald’s wonderful collection, Diana Comet and Other Improbable Stories, but my pals at Lethe Press have three of the five titles on the ballot for the SF&F category, and they are all on sale at half price in the Wizard’s Tower store. As a reminder, the books are:

The Berman anthology includes stories by Laird Barron, Elizabeth Hand, Tanith Lee, Richard Bowes, and Joel Lane. The other two books are collections.

If you want them, get them now. The sale ends tomorrow.

May Deadlines

~ Cheryl

Another month is drawing to a close, and there are a few things that we need to remember to get done.

Firstly, BristolCon has a price rise scheduled for the end of the month. Memberships are currently £15, and as of June 1st they will be £20. So buy now, here.

Secondly ballots for the World Fantasy Awards are due in by the end of the month, so if you have a vote, please use it. Two items in every category are reserved for member-voted nominees, so you can have an influence even though the winners are chosen by the jury. Should you wish to nominate Clarkesworld (or indeed Salon Futura), we are eligible in the Special Award – Non-Professional category.

Translation Awards Finalists

~ Cheryl

I have just sent out the press release, so hopefully this will be all over the blogosphere soon. The official announcement is here.

I should note that I have had no part whatsoever in the judging. I didn’t see the lists until yesterday. Given that I know so many of the people on the lists, this is just as well. But I will have the pleasure of handing out the prizes at Eurocon.

And I hope this encourages you to read some fine translated books.

Nebula Thoughts

~ Cheryl ~ 18 Comments

I have a whole lot of posts to make following on from the last three days on the road, but given that I have just put the Nebula Awards results up on the SF Awards Watch website, here are a few thoughts.

As Kevin and I explained on our podcast last week, the Campbell is “not a Hugo” because it doesn’t belong to WSFS. The award is owned and presented by Dell Magazines, and it would be quite wrong for WSFS to try to lay claim to it by calling it a Hugo. Nevertheless, every year outraged fans complain about how awful it is that WSFS insults young writers by not recognizing the Campbell as a Hugo.

The Nebulas, in contrast, have only four categories: novel and the three short fiction lengths. Two additional awards are presented with the Nebulas: one for movies and one for YA novels. They are both owned and presented by SFWA, but they are not Nebulas. I hardly ever hear anyone complain about the Bradbury or Norton being “Not a Nebula”. Which I think shows that all of the complaints about the Campbell have far more to do with fannish spitefulness than any real concern about the awards.

Having said that, I think the short list for the Norton this year was spectacular. Shipbreaker, White Cat and Mockingjay are all wonderful novels, and none of them won because they were up against Sir Terry Pratchett. Discworld novels are not really my cup of tea, but I knowledge the popularity and critical acclaim that they have garnered. The other three novels would all be ahead of several of the Novel finalists, including the winner, on my ballot, if I had one.

I’m always pleased to see Kij Johnson win awards, even if she does so with stories that were not published in Clarkesworld. I am a bit disturbed, however, about what I heard about the award ceremony. If you have a tie for an award you announce it as a tie, you don’t announce a winner, let her make an acceptance speech, and then announce that the result was a tie.

I haven’t read the winning novelette, though I will do soon as it is in the Hugo Voter Packet. I will note, however, that it is good to see Analog getting stories on award ballots again. Well done, Stan.

The novella winner is no surprise. Rachel Swirsky’s story has been getting award nods all over the place.

As for the novel, as I said on the podcast, Connie Willis is popular. The Nebula win, however, shows that she is popular with her fellow authors as well as with fandom. That’s something that people often forget when discussing the Hugos. A lot of writers attend Worldcon, and many of them vote. So if you don’t like the results of the Hugos, you can just dismiss that as the result of fannish stupidity.

I’m not particularly interested in the political campaign that has been waged against Willis’s book. This isn’t the first time that a novel has been split in two for publication, and it won’t be the last. This suggests, once again, that there is rather more going on that the stated reason for the complaint. But what of Blackout/All Clear as a novel?

Well, I haven’t read it yet. I have read several of Connie’s other books, and a new one is not high on my “to read” list. But I have had reason to complain before about her slapdash approach to story backgrounds. I was willing to give her a pass over the idea of extending the London Underground to Oxford. Not everyone is interested in railways, although if you live in the UK it is pretty obvious what a daft idea it is. The issues being reported with the new novel, however, appear much more serious. The Jubilee Line being open during WWII? Three hours to walk from Euston to Oxford Street? These are errors that any simple fact check ought to have turned up.

I suppose it is possible that Willis is trying to signal that these stories do not take place in our world. A more likely explanation, however, is that she and her publishers don’t care. That in turn, I suspect, is because the books are not set in the UK, but in a Disney theme park version of the UK. Which is why American readers love them, and British readers hate them.

Of course this too is nothing new. Hollywood does it all the time. Mary Poppins was hugely popular in the UK, despite Dick Van Dyke’s portrayal of a Londoner. But I like to think that in books we can, and should, do better. Also, giving a high profile award to a book that is so sloppy is a slap in the face to writers who do try to get their history right.

Hugo Talk

~ Cheryl ~ 1 Comment

Yes, Kevin and I have been at it again. There is a new Hugo Award podcast up at SF Awards Watch. In this one we explain why there are only 4 nominees in Short Story this year, why Doctor Who fans don’t have to worry about “splitting the vote” and why Connie Willis keeps getting nominated. There are lots of other questions we answer too. Our thanks to John DeNardo of SF Signal for playing the part of the ordinary fan in the street for us.

In addition to the actual podcast we have extensive show notes packed with statistics from the last 3 years of Hugo history. If you love poring over numbers, this will make you very happy. The data includes pie charts of number of nominating ballots by country of origin, which is information we didn’t get until 2010.

The Hugo Podcast, Episode 2

~ Cheryl ~ 12 Comments

As you may remember, back in February Kevin and I did an SF Awards Watch podcast in which we tried to dispel some of the more common myths and misconceptions about the Hugo Awards. Well, this year’s nominee lists have been announced, and many of the same complaints are being trotted out again. Also there are some interesting new questions, such as why there are only 4 nominees in Short Story. So we are going to do another podcast. John DeNardo of SF Signal has kindly offered to play the role of Joe Phan and ask the questions. Hopefully I will get the podcast online before I have to rush off to London for the British Library events.

If you have any questions that you would particularly like us to address, please ask them in comments below.

Locus Awards Finalists – 2 for Clarkesworld

~ Cheryl

The 2011 finalists for the Locus Awards have been announced, and I’m delighted to see that Clarkesworld got two stories in the top 5 for Short Story. These are:

Congratulations to all of the finalists (so many friends, such great competition). I look forward to finding out who wins in June.

Democracy: It Is Hard

~ Cheryl ~ 7 Comments

Via Kevin (with a nod to James Nicoll) I discovered this post in which Mike Brotherton explains everything that is wrong with the Hugos.

There’s nothing much new here. Brotherton’s particular combination of hobby horses may be different from other people’s, but his opinions have all been espoused by other people at some time in the past. What is most familiar about his post, though, is his conviction that he knows how the Hugos ought to be run, and that all right-thinking people should agree with him.

Brotherton says he doesn’t have the time to try to fix things himself, which is fair enough, but I’ve seen people like him before turn up at the Business Meeting determined to make everyone else see the error of their ways. Usually such people run away very quickly, complaining that They are conspiring to prevent the required changes, and demanding that They (presumably another They) do something about it.

The reasons this happens are many, but one of them is that while people like Brotherton are convinced that they know what needs to be done, they all have a different recipe for change, and so when you put them together they can’t agree. Getting support for your ideas is hard work, and requires a willingness to compromise.

Why am I talking about this now? Well today in the UK we are having a referendum. The question we are being asked is whether we should replace our existing First Past The Post (FPTP) system for parliamentary elections by something called Alternative Vote (AV, also known as Instant Runoff Voting, Australian Ballot and the way we run the final ballot for the Hugos). I’m going to vote in favor, as are many of my friends, but the referendum is going to fail, probably with a fairly massive majority against.

The reason for this is fairly simple. AV is a system that fosters compromise. In order to win you have to present policies that are acceptable to an actual majority of people. FPTP works well enough in a simple two-party system: Us again Them. But the more of a plurality of political ideas you have, the easier it becomes to win FPTP simply by being the largest minority on the dung heap. As Kevin likes to point out, FPTP in the Hugos could allow a book to win Best Novel with 21% of the electorate loving it and the other 79% hating it.

Politics, of course, isn’t generally a 5-way fight. But neither is it necessarily a 2-way fight. It is, however, fought in much the same way across the country. Why do I mention this? Because while you may not need more than around 35% support to win some hotly contested constituencies, if you can do that in all of the marginal constituencies you end up with a massive majority in parliament. And then you have 5 years in which you can run the country however you like.

So the UK has a choice between a political system in which people will always have to negotiate and compromise, and one in which a given party may be out of power a lot, but is always in with a chance of a massive victory.

Being out of power is, of course, frustrating, but it is also easy because you can say what you want, and stick to your principles, without having to deliver on your promises. Being in a coalition, on the other hand, is no fun at all, because you have to work hard all the time to get support for your policies, and your own supporters are forever calling you “turncoat” when you can’t deliver only what they want.

So the majority of the UK’s politicians want to stick with a system that gives them that chance of a massive majority, and the majority of the UK’s voters want to stick with a system that gives their side a change to remake the country according to their vision, because they know what needs to be done, and surely all right-thinking people should agree with them.

Who wants a compromise, if it means you’ll never get the chance to impose your will on others?

Parsec Awards

~ Cheryl

These awards are for podcasts, and they are currently going through a public nomination stage. Looking at the current list, I see that there is not a single Clarkesworld story listed as yet. I’m sure that some of you must have enjoyed one or two of them. There’s also currently no mention of Coode Street, The Writer and The Critic, or the Locus Roundtable. You can nominate podcasts here.

Eastercon – Sunday

~ Cheryl

Another day survived, and this one was a lot better.

I spent a couple of hours following the Australian awards ceremony from Swancon. I was astonished at the number of women winning awards. They dominated in all categories, but particularly notable were the Ditmar Awards. Out of 11 categories, only one was won by men, and in that case the wining work already had an Oscar (well done again, Shaun Tan). Every other category went to the ladies.

My one panel today was on nuclear power and it went very well (in marked contrast to all of my previous panels). Many thanks to Nige Furlong and Vincent Docherty for being excellent co-panelists.

Of course you absolutely cannot complain about a day on which you get a Hugo nomination. I’m a very small part of the Clarkesworld operation, and I have several Hugos already, but I am hoping we win this one because Kate Baker’s name is on the ballot this time and she’s a major part of our success. Kate Deserves a Hugo.

I’m also very pleased to see Peter Watts’s story, “The Things”, on the ballot. It was very popular with readers, with “Best Of” editors and now with award voters. Thank you for letting us publish it, Peter.

Of course it would be rather ironic if two of the Hugo winners were unable to accept their trophies because they are barred from entering the USA.

I’ll doubtless have more to say about the Hugos later, but as it is 1:00am here at Eastercon I really need sleep. I’d like to conclude with a quick shout out to my friends Ian Watson and Robert Quaglia for their nomination in this year’s Seiun awards. There are at least three Hugo nominees on the translated short fiction list, so they should be very proud to be there too.

Eastercon – Saturday

~ Cheryl ~ 1 Comment

Despite many dire predictions of disaster, Eastercon is progressing merrily on its way with little sign of Blackpool-like disaster. Several of the dealers I have spoken to have been quite happy, and I understand that the £700 or so that the fan fund auction raised is quite good given the state of the economy. Possibly people are saving money by not buying as much beer, because even such legendary drinkers as Eastercon attendees are beginning to balk at the bar prices.

Programming is proceeding pretty much on time but is perhaps showing a few signs of lack of preparation and forethought. Alternatively maybe the world is just changing. All of the panels I have attended so far have reminded me of online discussion, and not in a good way. There seems far too little discussion, and far too much argument by anecdata and straw man, or just people wanting to “have their say”. I’m sorely tempted to head into Birmingham tomorrow, but it is Easter Sunday and everything will be shut.

Ah well, there is a very nice lake next to the hotel with a path round it, allowing Kevin and I to take a pleasant post-breakfast walk. Also I have bagged an interview with Liz Williams for Salon Futura.

I have posted the results of the BSFA Awards over at SFAW. I’m very pleased to see The Dervish House win, though the field was very tough. It was also nice to see wins for a South African artist and a French writer. Clarkesworld‘s on entry in the short fiction category didn’t win, but I have high hopes for Peter Watts in the Hugos. Commiserations to my pals Jonathan and Gary — I voted for you, boys.

One other piece of interesting news is that the same folks who created the DnA Award have also secured the rights to create a new version of the legendary New Worlds magazine. Things are at a very early stage at the moment so there are a few rough edges to be filed off, but I’m always happy to see interesting new projects getting off the ground.

Shirley Jackson Awards

~ Cheryl

The nominee lists for the Shirley Jackson Awards came in last night just after I had gone to bed. I confess that I couldn’t be bothered to get up and blog then, but I have done so now.

The first thing of note is that Clarkesworld has a story on the ballot. “The Things” by Peter Watts from Issue 40 is up for the Best Short Story prize. Read it here.

In addition two of the Best Novella nominees are available through the Wizard’s Tower store. Details here, and note that you can buy Peter Dubé’s Subtle Bodies for half price until the award winners are announced.