Smart Bitches Trashy Books | All of the romance, none of the bullshit.

I dropped out of the RWA because they don’t recognize many of us epublished authors. Since I didn’t see the benefits of being part of RWA, I left. It’s too expensive to join.

Virtually all forms of accolade are some form of popularity contest. It is incumbent upon those relying on the accolade to understand just what it measures. Disclosure of any judging criteria should be a requirement, whether said award is a masturbatory exercise or literary critique. Anything less makes the award (a) meaningless to the author, and (b) meaningless to the consumer.

If I were on a RWA Revamp the RITA committee, I would think it vital to do a comparison of RITA process, categories, and criteria against the same for other awards.  So I’d want to evaluate how/why/what the Hugo, Nebula, Edgar, Pulitzer, RT Reader’s Choice, Oscar do what they do and then try to decide what’s good/bad about other awards, what the RITA is supposed to reward and build new process, categories, criteria from there.

Thank God I’m NOT on that committee!

I’m not even venturing an opinion about the awards. I’m commenting to say this was one of the best post titles EVER. :-D

sbsarahlikesbooks,

To fix the RITA’s… well one would need to be an author or a publisher.

Other than that I think we are all taking this just a touch too fucking seriously.  The best of the best of the best… is whatever the reader wants it to be.

Write the best book you can and poof you are a winner.  Get it published and poof you are a winner. 

The rest is subjective and well I can’t really say cuz I didn’t read past the part about ‘gosh people were voting who aren’t reg’s and omg teh fangirls’… I got freaked out by the llb channeling.

There are reader awards. The National Readers Choice Awards have been around for over a dozen years. The Gayle Wilson Award of Excellence is judged by readers (and booksellers?).

And the Ritas aren’t mysterious. The category guidelines are posted on the website. Writers choose the category they want to enter according to where their book fits, one would hope. Judges choose the category they want to judge. The judges are anonymous published authors. They READ THE BOOKS (see previous topic about the Hugos OHMYGOD!) and give each book a number score on a scale of 1 to 9. That’s it.

Yes, some categories could be combined and some added. I totally agree. But the series guidelines are taken right from the publishers, whether they’re arbitrary or not, so I assume readers are familiar with those.

I agree, Sarah, that the way other awards are given should first be evaluated.

With the caveat that I haven’t done that, here are my thoughts:

1. Reduce the number of award categories

2. Bring back the “Best Romance of the Year” category.  I don’t know what the problems with it were, but I just went to the RWA’s website and looked at the list of books that won that award.  It is as follows:

Best Romance of 1989
Morning Glory by LaVyrle Spencer

Best Romance of 1990
The Prince of Midnight by Laura Kinsale

Best Romance of 1991
Outlander by Diana Gabaldon

Best Romance of 1992
Come Spring by Jill Marie Landis

Best Romance of 1993
Lord of the Night by Susan Wiggs

Best Romance of 1994
It Had To Be You by Susan Elizabeth Phillips

In my humble opinion, this is a pretty good selection of books.  I’ve read the Spencer, Kinsale, Wiggs and Gabaldon and thought the first three of those were quite good. The Gabaldon I didn’t care for but I can certainly understand why it won.  And the two books I haven’t read are by authors I’ve tried.  Landis I read so long ago that I don’t remember her writing.  I would need to read her again to venture an opinion.  But I’ve read Susan Elizabeth Phillips more recently and I certainly think she is a skilled writer.

I also think this category is important because it’s the one that booksellers, librarians, readers, in other words, people outside the industry, are most likely to be interested in.  Therefore, I think this category should be brought back.

3.  Ultimately, I think the best way to rejuvenate the RITAs is for the romance community to embrace criticism and reviews.  As I said in my response to the original RTB post, the Oscars are preceded by a slew of critics’ awards which is where the movies that end up being nominated for the Oscars first get attention.  I think the Oscars are more respected partly because the Academy respects the opinions of film critics and its members take those opinions into consideration when voting.

Yeah, catagory revamp is probaly in order, but my monday mush brain is not capable of intelligent suggestions. 

IMO a reader award catagory has merit, as does critic, and even peer/author divisions.  Each appreciates different merits of a novel.

Happy Monday.

Locus has a big list of Science Fiction awards, with some (but not in depth) info on how they work, along with historical winners.

What I take from that is…

- Award’s should, for preference, be named after beloved dead writers, or dead publishers/editors, well known in the genre.
- Failing a suitable dead writer, second choice is a object/noun evocative of the genre.  So ‘The Mantitty’ sorta works.  The ‘RITA’, not so much.
- For preference your Award should have been founded sometime in the early 1950s.
- Award categories, must must must, be distinguished either by _form_ I.e. novel, novella, short story, film script, etc., or by _job function_, i.e best editor, best artist. NOT by subgenre. See also Oscars.
- If you want to recognise a particular sub-genre, you create a brand new award, named after a different suitable dead author, with it’s own nomination, balloting rules, and sponsoring organisation.
- Two round ballots, Aussie Rules ballots, or judged by a panel.
- There is no ‘decided by ballot of any random person in the world who feels like voting’ award.  The Hugo, which is the most fan-based award, is nominated and voted upon by attendees or supporting members the annual World Science Fiction Convention.  This year’s convention is Nippon 2007.  So it’s much more like the BWAHA voted upon by registered smartbitches members, then the BWAHA voted on by anybody with a web-browser, except with more transfer of necessary $$ to the organisers of the convention become a supporting member, or inconvenient travel to Japan to be an attendee.  Nominations by any member or attendee, then Aussie rules balloting to determine the winner.
- The Nebula is awarded by the Science Fiction Writers of America, which requires published qualifing works to join, and is apparently deeply unloved. So the RWA equivalent, I guess. However the nomination process appears to be both peculiar and non-anonymous enough to encourage the sort of thing likely what Julie’s friend was complaining about.  Then two-rounds of balloting among the membership to determine the winner.  The Nebula still obeys the split by form not by subgenre rule tho’.
- Award statuettes should, for preference, look suspiciously like high end sex toys.

Does anyone have the judging rules for, say, the Edgar? I’d be curious.

How do you catch a cloud and pin it down…

hmmh mhmh mhmhmh mhhmhmh MARIA!

How do you solve a problem like Maria?
How do you catch a cloud and pin it down?
How do you find a word that means Maria?
A flibbertijibbet! A will-o’-the wisp! A clown!

Many a thing you know you’d like to tell her
Many a thing she ought to understand
But how do you make her stay
And listen to all you say
How do you catch a wave upon the sand

Oh, how do you solve a problem like Maria?
How do you hold a moonbeam in your hand?

Oh lord, it looks like an all day thing.

The Nebula used to be highly regarded. These days, not so much (and there’s a nice little travelling flame war in the sf blogosphere about that very subject...). But Nebula is essentially nominations from your peers, followed by judging by a panel of your peers. Hugo is fan-voted, but under reasonably tight conditions that involve putting up significant amounts of money to buy extra ballot papers. No, there’s nothing to stop someone from voting for a book they’ve never read (and I’m sure it happens when someone sees a new work by a favourite author that they haven’t got around to reading yet). But I’d say that a more likely problem is people having read only one of the five shortlist items, and voting for that one without bothering to read the others.

(If anyone feels a desperate urge to set up something equivalent to the Hugos, it would be worth talking to some of the people who administer the Hugo. The first piece of advice they will give you will probably be “don’t”.)

between17—no, thank you, I’m not that greedy.

Oh, and yes, the Hugo looks remarkably like a high end sex toy. There was one sitting on the table in Fan Alley just down from the one where I was working at Glasgow Worldcon. They tend to get a lot of “I’ll never get one, so can I touch yours?” attention. *I* resisted the temptation to give it a handjob, but the same could not be send of some of the other people who were fondling it.

daily46—no, just...no.

Totally off topic, but…

You can register here?  It never occured to me that I could register a screen name here.  Ohhhhhhhh.  Time to go do that

If, for example, the SBTB BWAHA award (and really, I’m not proposing Candy and I start taking ourselves too seriously, here. I’m speaking purely in the hypothetical situation of trying to build a reader-determined award) voting was restricted to only SBTB members, then we’d be excluding those who participate regularly (and at length) but have not registered themselves with our site for whatever reason.

-->Speaking as an at least semi-regular poster who has not registered, I can say that I haven’t registered because I don’t know what the benefits to registration are. General internet safety and annoyance-avoiding rules say, “Don’t register for something for no reason.” This applies even when it’s as cool a site as the Smart Bitches.

As for the RITAs...what is the voting mechanism? The Hugos (and I think the Nebulas, as well), have tiered voting. That is, a person votes for a first, second, and third place award. By the arcane process of many rounds of evaluation, it is theoretically possible for a book that doesn’t have the most first-place votes overall to be the actual winner. Of course, this system can also be gamed (all of Author Gameplayer’s fans vote for AG’s book in first place, but “no award” after that), but theoretically this system does minimize such nonsense.

Also, just as a correction to someone else’s description of Hugo voting eligibility above: a person is eligible to vote in the Hugos if they are attending that year’s WorldCon, or if they attended the previous year’s WorldCon. I’m not going to Japan this year, but I can still vote, by dint of having been to WC in 2006.

I should note, however, that even that system isn’t foolproof, if the voting membership for an award holds a particular skew. For instance, the World Fantasy Awards tend toward the literary (both in winner and in all books shortlisted). Contrast with the Hugo, which has literary works alongside popular commercial works, simply by dint of a broader, more populist-oriented membership in the convention. (I conveniently ignore that only a small fraction of all eligible voters actually vote...)

From my perspective as an outsider, the RITAs have a million subcategories that seem (to me) to devalue them overall. Slice a cake too thin, and pretty much everyone can have a piece.

wordver: “Lot51” Where they park spaceships in Roswell?

Does anyone have the judging rules for, say, the Edgar? I’d be curious.

Ask, and you shall receive, Ms. Nora!

The overview for choosing judges is here. In short, a single General Awards Chair chooses one chair for each of the twelve categories (more on those below). Each category chair chooses four judges to round out the category panel. The Best Novel panel usually has eight judges total because of the volume of submissions. These judges read all novels submitted to them in the Best Novel category throughout the year. Last year there were 500 novels submitted. Dang.

The categories and their qualifying criteria are listed here. As I noted before, the categories are based purely on format, not generic convention.

Having researched this process last night and today, I must say I trust the Edgar Awards much more than the RITAs, if for no other reason than they have the guts to declare a winner in the, say, Short Story category, regardless of whether it’s a historical or contemporary or contains Inspirational elements or what have you. I think in this instance, with judges evaluating a wide array of plots/characters/etc., craft (style, grammar, plotting) become easier to judge across a category.

I don’t know much about the workings of the MWA membership, or whether the non-generic categorization causes divisions among, say, writers of cozy mysteries and writers of edgier mysteries. But it seems to me that a group of adults should be able to accept a Best Mystery Novel winner that doesn’t come from their own category.

My code word is able42—yes, I’m able to provide an answer. *g*

Not quite the Edgar _rules_ but:

The Edgar® Judging Process - An Overview

The first thing the RITAs need is a score sheet.  Last year a friend of mine was so excited to judge, until she got the books and absolutely no criteria on which to judge them.  She made up her own score sheet and sent it in, which, to my mind, is total craziness.  How are you going to effectively run a contest without some uniform standard of scoring?

On the subject of ebooks, though, why not, instead of making more categories, just allow them to compete in the regular categories?

It seems like if making new categories is a problem, they should lighten up the restrictions on the existing categories.  The categories in the RITAs (and the Golden Heart, too, while we’re at it) need to reflect their standards for recognizing publication.  If you can write an erotic romance for Ellora’s cave and be considered published by the rules of the organization, there should be a place for those published authors to enter their work, end of story.

The first thing the RITAs need is a score sheet.  Last year a friend of mine was so excited to judge, until she got the books and absolutely no criteria on which to judge them.  She made up her own score sheet and sent it in, which, to my mind, is total craziness.  How are you going to effectively run a contest without some uniform standard of scoring?

Exactly. To what standard have these books been judged? By what I’m reading, none.

Also, just as a correction to someone else’s description of Hugo voting eligibility above: a person is eligible to vote in the Hugos if they are attending that year’s WorldCon, or if they attended the previous year’s WorldCon.

Minor correction: Members of last year’s Worldcon (along with members of the current Worldcon as of the end of January) are eligible to nominate (the first round of the selection process, with the five blanks in each category described elsewhere).  Only members of the current Worldcon are eligible to vote on the final ballot with the five (sometimes more due to ties; rarely less if the category is very lightly nominated) finalists.

Voting is, as mentioned elsewhere, done by “instant runoff” (sometimes misleadingly called “Australian") ballot, where you put a 1 by the choice you want to win, a 2 by the choice you’d want if your first choice wasn’t on the ballot, a 3 for your next choice, and so on until you run out of choices or don’t care about the remaining candidates.  “No Award” is always a choice as well, and has historically won on several occasions, although it has been a long time since it last happened.

Kevin Standlee
Hugo Awards Co-Administrator 1993, 1994, 2002

~The first thing the RITAs need is a score sheet.~

I get a score sheet. In that I get a form, with the books listed, to fill in my score.

I looked over the Edgar rules--and it’s late, I’m a little tired after the work day, so I might’ve missed something. But I didn’t see any specific instructions, rules, whatever, for judging. It seems to be up to the judge’s opinion and discretion--though the Edgar judges (still 5-8 people) discuss the entries with each other throughout the process.

I don’t know, and don’t much care anymore (at least not right this minute), but while the judge selection process is different there, and there are certainly less categories (which may be part of why there is Malice Domestic and The Agathas), the judging process itself seems pretty much what I’m used to doing. Except I don’t discuss with other judges. I decide on my own. I don’t think either way is wrong, just different.

As for reader-judged awards, I can’t think of any that don’t separate Romances into category. Historical, Contemporary, Romantic Supense, Series, etc, etc. I think, basically, the genre lends itself to this because of its diversity. I don’t see that as a bad thing. Others may.

Yikes, when it comes to the RITAs (or the Golden Heart, for that matter), I don’t see a lot changing.  Multiple RWA chapters have reader-based contests (tho I think ours, the National Reader’s Choice Awards, are the longest running), and to my thinking, that’s enough for RWA.

In the NRCA, we give our readers 4 books from the categories they’ve listed as “favorites”, and ask them to score AND rank them (to break ties).  It’s worked for 14 years, so I guess we’re doing something right *g*.

Tangent:  apparently not everyone in the SF community thinks the Nebula’s reputation is that great.  Check out the Galley Cat piece posted today on Scalzi’s write-in candidacy for SFWA prez.  I’m sure there’s more on it on the Interweb…

I’m swiftly coming to the conclusion that *all* ‘excellence’ awards are bogus. Once, I too thought that, say, the Booker was superior to the Oscar. However, some recent articles flying around have nixed that.

It appears (and I believe Galleycat had a good round-up of this) that each publisher has so many ‘slots’ (say, 2) for its literary entrants for a given prize. So, if you’ve written something worthy of a Nobel Prize for Literature (not that I respect the Nobels any more) BUT you’re third in submitting your prose, you miss out on a shot at the <>.

Under the circumstances, RWA’s process--I feel--is no better or worse than anyone else’s.

Rotten Tomatoes? Now, THAT’s the kind of award I can get excited about! :)

jmc: that would be the current location of the travelling flamewar I referred to earlier. :-)

(*Both* my genres seem to be in an uproar about awards over the last few days.)

Are there reader awards? A ton of them. Everything from the P&E Polling for e-books, which has its problems, but they do their best on it, to the PEARL (one of the most prestigious around for romance books, IMO...beyond some of the RWA chapter ones, like Prism award, though PEARL only for sf/f/p crosses) for both e-books and print. Even the Dream Realm (for sf/f/p and cross-genres) takes readers as judges, though some judges are editors or authors in their own rights, as well as being readers.

This raises a few questions to be fielded…

One, how is the pool of voters/judges established? With P&E, anyone with an e-mail address can be a judge. Chances are, people are stacking the vote along the way, because it’s so easy to do. For Dream Realm, they choose judges from volunteer readers, who might also be industry professionals. For EPPIE, they used to only use EPIC members to judge (all of whom are contracted or published authors, editors, publishers and other industry pros). Now, they are moving to EPIC members and EPPIE entrants (keeping with the published author requirement that would make them ELIGIBLE to be EPIC members), with at least one of two judges in first round as EPIC members and all final round judges EPIC members...as well as any variance judges. For the PEARL, only Paranormal Romance list members, on the lists at least a few weeks before voting starts, are permitted to vote. The list has a lot of readers, some authors and editors/publishers.

Two, is the award voted or judged? This makes a BIG difference. For one thing, how MANY people like it makes not a whit of difference, if it’s judged. You have a couple of judges. You usually have some sort of variance judging in place to avoid nepotism judgings or the polar opposite...sour grape judgings. From that standpoint, EPPIE and Dream Realm are of a type and PEARL and P&E are of a type.

Three, is the award INTENDED as a readers’ choice, reviewers’ choice or a professionally-judged award? They are very different animals, indeed. Not one is better than the others, but they mean different things. In a readers’ or reviewers’ choice award (even if they are judged), it means readers like the book...technically, either way. In a professionally-judged award, it means a panel of your peers have said your book places higher than the competition.

Either way, every contest is part skill and part luck...barring cheating. Either the luck of voters liking you or the luck of not hitting a judge’s personal nits.

What is the judging criteria, and are there variance judging guidelines in place? This one is obvious, as is the fact that it applies only to professionally-judged awards.

Now, what I’m hearing is that the RITA is judged, but not everyone is getting criteria in how to judge? That is madness.

I’ve been a category coordinator for EPPIE for the last two years. We send out PRECISELY what the judges are looking for in five fields of quality writing and category requirements. We tell them how to judge the points they take off for errors. Some people STILL say we don’t give enough guidance, so I lead them through with an even more detailed sheet.

IMO, THAT is the sort of support judges for the RITA should have, as well. And, if they don’t have a variance catch-all, they need to.

For that matter, I agree that there should be adequate categories in the RITA to cover the extent romance and erotic romance categories. EPIC’s breakdown is impressive and growing by the year, as the numbers allow more splits. With the number of entries RITA gets, you can’t tell me they can’t support a few more categories.

Brenna

Sorry, Jules!  I didn’t read all of the comments before posting, so I didn’t realize you’d already referred to the Nebula/Scalzi thing.  I haven’t followed the links, so I didn’t realize there was a flame war going on.  Wow.  Is it rude of me to be very curious now?  *off to see what’s going on in SF world*

jmc: I hadn’t bothered posting links because I’d been following the SFWA-is-broken-or-will-be-soon thing in John Scalzi’s own blog, and some of the stuff in there really isn’t going to be of much interest, or even understandable, to someone not already into the genre and its internal politics and personalities. The post you linked to is quite a nice summary.

The Nebulas have had problems for some years now, and it’s reached the stage where there is weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth over how to fix stuff. But there was a time when it was a prestigious award.

I don’t believe this… just18 for the security word.

I forgot to mention one thing...strictly from a marketing POV. It’s nice to have awards. The readers of an author are always excited when you GET an award, but the bottom line is… No reader new to an author EVER bought a book, because it was a RITA winner/finalist, or an EPPIE...or has a P&E Top Ten or a PEARL… Yes, they might see the announcement of the winners and decide to check them out, but that’s an exposure thing. Just the icon on the author site doesn’t mean a thing to the average reader, as far as I’ve been able to tell.

Brenna

My beef with the Ritas this year wound up being an intensely personal one, so I’ll state that right up front.  My category didn’t make it, for one-- (Young Adult--in a great year for Young Adult books and we couldn’t manage 25 entries, but that’s a whole ‘nother rant) and I couldn’t go into the secondary category that would have best suited my story (Mainstream with SRE) because of the word count restriction.  Not because my book was too long-- while it is long for a YA at 72K words, it didn’t qualify for Mainstream because that had a MINIMUM word count of 80K.  It was right there in the rules and I had somehow completely missed it, because it seems so odd that for a book to be considered Mainstream it would have to START at 80K words.

So I chose a tertiary category, Contemporary Single Title-- because it started with a minimum word count of 70K.  Was it the best place for my book?  Oh hell no.  So why go to so much effort?

Because this is my one and only shot at Best First Book.  Is that arrogant, to think I had a chance there?  Maybe-- but who’s to say I didn’t have as good a chance as any of the other first books out in 2006 and why shouldn’t I have my chance?

The worst part was, when I expressed my frustration to one of the individuals who was taking opinions for revamping the Ritas, I essentially got a pat on the head and a “There, there, dear, so sorry, but doesn’t one of the children’s book organizations have a contest you can enter?” email in response.

My hair nearly caught on fire, I was so ticked.  This isn’t about contests-- it’s about the Rita.  RWA has been my primary writing organization since I started in this gig-- and actually, a lot of the children’s writing orgs don’t really cater to the more commercial Teen/YA books and really, so not the point.  The point is, I consider RWA to be my writing home and would have hoped for a little more support from the PTB.  Again, full disclosure-- I did get a lot of support from many, many members of RWA who considered the whole situation to be FUBAR’d beyond belief and from people who are on the committee to revamp the contest rules, so it’s not like I was totally hung out to dry.  But for this year, yeah, I’m essentially screwed.

Anyhow, very long-winded way of saying, if I were on that committee, I’d look long and hard at this whole word count issue, especially for the categories that aren’t for series books which is the only place that word count seems to matter from a professional standpoint.

I’m not entirely certain why they impose their own word count restrictions on the categories. The publishers do that for themselves. If it’s been PUBLISHED, and it’s in the category, they should simply let it compete. The rest is a head game, IMO.

But, don’t get me started. RWA National’s idea of “published” is enough to make me swear and spit. Even though I’m WITH a recognized publisher, my new releases are with a couple of companies that aren’t recognized, so I can’t play.

Yet another reason I prefer the EPPIE. As long as it’s in e-book and more than 10K words (less for children’s and poetry), even if it has a print version, it can play. We’ve had NY books enter, indie/e and even self-published or vanity-published. Everyone is on equal ground. And, yet another reason I like the PEARL...as long as it’s in the right categories, everyone plays, e-book or print, indie/e or NY.

Brenna

If they’re commensurate with what the publishers require for the specific series categories, I got no beef with them.  I don’t write in category, so I can’t attest to how closely the numbers jibe. 

And I should clarify too, that the Rita isn’t the only contest I entered, so it’s not like it’s the only contest I put stock in.  I was nominated for the Cybils, and entered a few other awards-- RWA and other writing organizations alike.  My favorite, so far, has been the Florida Book Awards, because of how it was organized and juried.

I get a score sheet. In that I get a form, with the books listed, to fill in my score.

Yes, but there really isn’t any criteria.  I mean, to be fair, you could judge on a scale of varying smiley faces with the same effect.  How do I judge what a ten is?  In most contests, you judge on a variety of elements and it’s a cumulative score.  What if I’m holding a book with an absolutely ridiculous plot, but I think the heroine is great?  Or maybe the heroine sucks but the descriptive phrases rock my world?  Can I give a ten to a book when I think the romance is forced but the subplot is amazing?  On a more in depth score sheet, the judging would be more accurate, and everyone would be playing on the same field.

There are some awsomely smart people on this website.

I second Janine’s opinion.  Bring back the Romance of the Year award.

I haven’t read all those that won but of those that I have, the Kinsale and the Phillips, I would have no problem showing them off to people as a best romance of the year.

Having a more detailed scoresheet might also be helpful. Perhaps have one section for fuzzy feelings inspired, and the other for crafty concerns? Am not sure how practical this would be.

Well with fuzzy feelings judging eroticas may be a little more precarious. What would those parameters of a good read be?  Actually I was thinking more along the lines of conflict resolution, character motivation, setting, historical accuracy. You know. Crap like that.

All of which can make up that warm fuzzy panties on fire feeling.

I’m so exhausted I may have missed a comment like this, so I’m sorry if I’m duplicating someone else’s point.  But as a reader who is curious enough to check out different blogs, Romance sites, and author web pages, I’d love to see more author sites that aren’t as oriented toward the Romance “fan” and are more oriented (or just as oriented) to the Romance “reader” (or prospective reader).  By “reader” I mean the person who may or may not be a fan of a particular author, but who is prompted to check out an author site, when, say, she clicks on her name from one of the comments on this here blog.  I find a lot of author sites that seem to be geared toward the reader who is already a fan of said author’s work, and I find that sort of alienating rather than inviting.  OTOH, I love it when an author’s site provides me with information that actually enriches my understanding or exposure to new things in the genre.  I’m not that into the pretty pictures of book signings, but I do love historical background (like on Jo Beverly’s site) or essays on the genre (like on Jennifer Crusie’s site), or even comments on books (like on Jo Goodman’s site, which has FINALLY caught up to the 21st century!). I don’t mind the pretty pictures of book signings and conventions, but I’ll usually go for the meatier stuff first.  I wouldn’t overlook a serious presentation on why the RITAs are important to particular authors. 

I think more author sites are moving in this direction, but one thing that would help a skeptical reader like me become more aware of the RITAs is if authors talked about them on their sites and blogs as more than gushing prose and pictures of the dress and the party and the champagne, etc.  I understand that the celebration is important and fun, but I don’t take that at all seriously when it comes to checking out a RITA winning book.  Of course it depends on whom authors want to direct their sites to, and what their core readership expects. 

As for the discussion on judging criteria, it seems from what I’ve read that the problem isn’t lack of written guidelines *per se*—because the Pulitzer juries don’t have a list of criteria, either.  But I get the sense that there’s already a shared vocabulary in the Pulitzer judging about what makes a work outstanding that doesn’t uniformly exist in the RITA process.  So maybe enumerated criteria would help create that common vocabulary?  Or maybe not.

I don’t know, honestly, about more specific judging instructions. I read the book, I judge it on story, on craft, on character, on how it worked for me. I’m the judge, so it has to be how it worked for me. Another judge might judge it differently. That’s why there are five for each round.

So the rules could be: Five points for craft, two for character, blah blah, whatever. It would STILL be how it worked for the individual judge.

Personally, I’d get so wrapped up in points given, deducted during the process of reading, I’d hate the book before it was over.

Do any of the major book competitions--Edgar, Nebula, Agatha, have judging instructions like that? I don’t know. Maybe they do.

If the problem people are having with the Oscars or the Ritas or any award is that a crappy book wins on occasion, well, then someone will always have that problem. Taste is subjective. There’s no way that every book that wins a Rita is going to deserve it in everyone’s eyes. I can say that the Rita winners I’ve read, I’ve understood why they’ve won, even if they weren’t my cup of tea. And there have been some books brought to my attention because of the Rita that I’ve loved, and probably wouldn’t have read otherwise. (Evelyn Vaughn’s AKA GODDESS comes to mind.)

My problem with the Ritas are two-fold; categories that make no sense and the weird word-count requirements. I’ll start with categories. We’ve got three historical categories:

Best Long Historical Romance
Best Short Historical Romance
Best Regency Romance

Which should be filtered down to:

Best Historical Romance

Three contemporary categories:

Best Contemporary Single Title Romance
Best Long Contemporary Romance
Best Short Contemporary Romance

Which should be filtered down to:

Best Contemporary Romance

Then you’ve got the rest, which are okay…

Best Inspirational Romance
Best Novel with Strong Romantic Elements
Best Paranormal Romance
Best Romantic Suspense
Best Traditional Romance
Best Young Adult Romance
Best Romantic Novella
Best First Book

And nothing for sci-fi/futuristic (which are always entered in paranormal, and can’t compete, because apples-oranges); nothing for romantic comedy, which do okay in standard contemporary, but still, apples-oranges; nothing for erotica, which again, apples-oranges, can’t compete.

Also… word count. 80k for Strong Romantic Elements. 95k for long historical. 40k for Inspirational and Paranormal. Huh? What? I know someone who could have competed this year, except her novel was only 60k for a category that required 70k. And, truth be told, had she used the 250/wrd/page standard issue of counting rather than the MS Word count, by that standard, she would have made it, because that standard fluctuates a great deal. But if she was Inspirational, she would have flown in on a cloud. That, my friends, is crap. It was a great, full-length book but she was thrown out on a stupid, arbitrary technicality.

So, that’s what I think is wrong with the Ritas. A more detailed score-sheet wouldn’t be bad, but the reality is, it all comes down to the particular taste of that particular judge, and there’s no way those tastes are going to speak to everyone. By and large, I think the vast majority of Rita winners have earned it. There might have been a couple of stinkers that slipped in, and popularity undoubtedly affects the outcome because it’s impossible for it not to. These aren’t anonymous. But there’s no way to fix that, no way to control it. My problems are categories and word count, and if something’s done about those, and if maybe they write up a more detailed score sheet, then I think the Ritas will be as good as it’s possible to get them. It’s an industry award, where people are given recognition by their peers. Go to the NRCA for a reader’s award, but you’ll have the same problem with stinkers, because readers are just as subjective as authors.

And SBTBs - I’ve got my fangirl posse all ready for the next BWAHAs! :) And they’re gonna send in their votes in ALL CAPS! Enjoy!

Thanks to the people advocating a gay/lesbian category, but I see two difficulties in creating one.

First, only a tiny handful of books would be eligible, because most glbt romances are published by presses not recognized by the RWA. For instance, only 4 of the most recent 20 finalists in the Romance category of Lambda Literary Awards were published by RWA-recognized publishers. Until large presses print more gblt romances and/or more small presses get recognition, there’s little point in having a category.

Second, even if created, a glbt category would pit apples against oranges. There are gay & lesbian contemporary romances, paranormals, historicals--even Regencies, ferchrissakes. My instinct is that they should be competing not against each other, but against other contemporaries, paranormals, etc. If we had a separate glbt category, my sense is that there would be reluctance to accept nominations into the other categories--"No, no, dear--you belong over there.” If we want inclusion, I think we should be competing in the already-existing categories.

Those of us who are eligible, that is.

I think we may be nitpicking some of this to death.  I was a judge in this year’s Eppie awards.  I can tell a good book from a bad one.  A bad book has continuity errors, poor plotting, skewed grammar, cardboard characters, inane dialog and just leaves you feeling abused and unsatisfied as a reader.  A good book has none of the above, and also entertains, enlightens and leaves you feeling like your time wasn’t wasted reading it.

So that’s the first round.  It’s not brain surgery, it’s putting to work what we know as educated readers and/or writing professionals.

And for the record, I would never judge in the category I’m entered in, or one where I might miss the nuances of the sub-genre (what makes an Inspirational an Inspirational, what makes a Regency a Regency). 

Finally, my complaint with the Ritas, and I say this as a dues paying member of RWA for some years, is that only books by RWA recognized publishers can enter.  I finaled in the Lories for best single title (published), and won the Eppies (two) in best historical romance, but to RWA I’m still officially unpublished with three books on sale.

Marlys wrote:
Second, even if created, a glbt category would pit apples against oranges. There are gay & lesbian contemporary romances, paranormals, historicals--even Regencies, ferchrissakes.

And again, we’re back to the apples and oranges thing. The problem with GLBT is that, like erotica, it’s on the fringe. There are eroticas that are in all these categories as well, but since the big thing that defines it as a genre is the erotica part, I think in these cases, you kind of have to lump them all together, because too many of your mainstream readers will judge erotica and GLBT based on simply that content, and you won’t get a fair evaluation of the book. It stinks, but it’s the truth.

The start is to get a GLBT and erotica category, then get enough people to enter (YA AUTHORS LISSEN UP). The current categories were appropriate ten or fifteen years ago, but now they need revamping. If you can get your foot in the door now, in ten years the landscape might change, and we’ll be having the same conversation… again. But hopefully with more flexible results.

~Best Contemporary Single Title Romance
Best Long Contemporary Romance
Best Short Contemporary Romance

Which should be filtered down to:

Best Contemporary Romance~

This would be my only real disagreement. I could agree with Best Series (category Romance) and Best Contempory Romance.

I think the category romance deserves its spot.

I think the word counts once served a purpose--when category spanned more lines then it currently does. Now, it’s time to toss them.

The start is to get a GLBT and erotica category, then get enough people to enter (YA AUTHORS LISSEN UP).

Lani, my darling, outside of physically flogging people, and believe me, if I’d been within reach, I would’ve given that a shot, I don’t know what else we could’ve done.  Marianne and I encouraged, cajoled, nagged, and did everything short of offer bribes to get people to enter.  It’s as I told Sarah in an email, I suspect (AND THIS IS JUST PERSONAL OPINION, PEOPLE) that some people who write both adult and Young Adult fiction tend to think of their YA as less important somehow. 

Some other people were dissuaded from entering because of the wording of the YA category rules, that follow the line of thinking that there must be a romance storyline that comprises the majority of the story-- no YA should have the romance as the main storyline.  YA would be better served with a definition closer to the Mainstream with Strong Romantic Elements category definition.

But simple fact of the matter is, there are several of us who TRIED to get our fellow writers to enter-- they didn’t.

Academic professional associations have a lot of awards, all peer-reviewed (best books, best dissertations, best articles, best conference papers).  They’re all judged, and I’ve been on panels for each type.  I agree that the problem isn’t usually the lack of explicit criteria, but the extent to which the criteria are agreed upon across the judges and the audience.  I’ve had no problem voting for an entry that *I* wouldn’t necessarily write, but that clearly succeeds on its own terms.  The disagreements and public grumblings come when the judges and the winner line up ideologically or methodologically and exclude books that are further from the judges’ own approaches.  But that doesn’t happen as often as you’d think, or at least the skewing isn’t as sharp as it might be.  A well-executed book/paper is pretty easy to tell from a badly executed one.  And these are not big panels; usually 3 or at most 5 judges.

Of course, this is social science, so there are no points awarded or deducted for warm fuzzies.  Warm fuzzies have been beaten out of any successful entrant.

I also agree that you need to decide whether you are having a judged award or a poll.  It is very very hard to have a poll that is an accurate (in the statistical sense) reflection of tastes.  AAR’s reader poll may be a relatively good approximation of its readers (overemphasis on historicals, no one reads categories, etc.), but there’s no way of knowing, because the voters are self-selected and we can’t tell whether they represent the AAR readers as a whole.  7500 respondents means a lot more than post regularly, but a lot less than visit in a year.  And the extent to which the results diverge from sales reminds us that this is a poll of AAR readers, not a more generally representative group of romance readers.

If you used your registered commenters, then you would at least be starting from a universe that you could identify (although you wouldn’t know much about them, except you have a lot of smart commenters).  I think that’s why the Hugo works, for all its flaws.  You can game any poll, but with Worldcon attendance you at least know where you start.

The SF Site used to have a great category:  Big Fat Read of the year (mostly fantasy, naturally). 

(was16; um, yes, I was.  A long time ago.)

Lani wrote: “And again, we’re back to the apples and oranges thing. The problem with GLBT is that, like erotica, it’s on the fringe.”

Which brings us back to the publishers of such (and epublishers in general)—few are recognized by RWA. It may be my stubborn, rebellious streak, but right now, I totally fail to see why any publisher on that “fringe” would scramble to jump through RWA’s shifting hoops.

Already, with the recent recognition of Loose Id and Samhain, we’re seeing RWA “rethink” its criteria for recognition. *shrug* Speaks volumes to me.

RWA recognition itself falls into the same trap as some of the awards discussed here.

The start is to get a GLBT and erotica category, then get enough people to enter

As already mentioned, a lot of the GLBT and erotica is published by non-recognised publishers—and even the ones that are are caught by the rule that excludes ebooks unless they are also available in a print edition. (Maybe that’s not what the rule means—but that’s what it *says*.) My publisher has just been recognised by RWA, but according to the published rules for the RITA I still can’t enter my book that’s just come out or the one scheduled for release later. Lord and Master is only available in ebook format, Dolphin Dreams will only be released in ebook format, and I’m not aware of any plans to release either in print. Even there were, it’s conceivable that the print edition would only appear next year—at which point I’d probably find they were excluded on the grounds they were first published this year.

Must quote Willow, Bored Now.

The start is to get a GLBT and erotica category, then get enough people to enter

Or, just get an erotica category and allow the gay/lesbian stories to enter them.

In fact, is there an actual rule that you can’t enter a gay romance in the contemporary romance category?  I know there was that whole “between one man and one woman” wording in the “let’s define romance” survey, but is there anything like that in the RITA rules now that would make gay romances inelligible for the major categories?

I missed out on my shot at “Best First Book” as well, thanks to RITA’s refusal to accept books in e-format and insistence they be bound and sent by a publisher.

I recently judged a contest with, I think, a very good scoring system. Entires are scored out of 5 on about 20 different things: characterization, technical writing, pacing, etc.

The scores are then added. Simple.

Yes, opinions vary, but this seems a little less subjective to me than a simple score, 1-9, for an entire book.

In one of the books I judged I found the hero truly sleazy (if I told you what he did, you would too, trust me). I gave the author a low score for the “How heroic/loveable was the hero” space, but was able to give the rest of the book objective scores, as they did not relate specifically to liking the hero. Make sense?

If I had to give the whole book one score, the objectionable behavior of the hero would ahve made the score much lower, although there were things I liked about the book. But as an overall love story, I wouldn’t have been able to--I did not want this man to have a happy ending and felt very bad for the heroine ending up with someone who would use her in such a careless fashion. Because there were lots of technical scores etc., I believe the book got a much fairer score from me.

Jump all over me if you want for not being objective, but that’s my point. Judging is personal opinion. The techincal scores and the breakdown helped me to stay that way.

Jennifer Armintrout wrote:
“In fact, is there an actual rule that you can’t enter a gay romance in the contemporary romance category?  I know there was that whole “between one man and one woman” wording in the “let’s define romance” survey, but is there anything like that in the RITA rules now that would make gay romances inelligible for the major categories?”

I’m not sure, but even if they were eligible, I think it’d be a tough fight for that book. Every book has a “reader” and I think that a majority of the people who love man-woman romances wouldn’t be able to relate to the alternative romance and might have trouble scoring it fairly. Is it right? No. Is it the way it is? I kinda think so. Considering we’re dealing with an organization that even tried to distinguish romance as solely man-woman, I’m not sure all minds are as open as they could be. With a specialized category, judges can choose what categories they’re willing to judge, which makes each book more likely to find someone inclined toward that subject matter. For fringe stuff like erotica and GLBT, I think they need their own category in order to get in the game. It’s a shame, but there it is.

Anonymous wrote:
I recently judged a contest with, I think, a very good scoring system. Entires are scored out of 5 on about 20 different things: characterization, technical writing, pacing, etc.

Yes, opinions vary, but this seems a little less subjective to me than a simple score, 1-9, for an entire book.

I actually like this. It’s still simple, but makes each judge really think about all these different things.

Kalen Hughes wrote:
Must quote Willow, Bored Now.

Geez, Kalen, sorry. I just hate it when people hold a gun to my head and make me read commentary when I’m not interested. Here’s hoping you get your freedom back soon, and can just click away when you’re not interested in the conversation anymore. Poor thing.

Jennifer Armintrout wrote:
Or, just get an erotica category and allow the gay/lesbian stories to enter them.
Not all gay/lesbian romance is erotica. You knew that, right?

In fact, is there an actual rule that you can’t enter a gay romance in the contemporary romance category?
No. And we’ll continue to be on the fringes unless we get into the standing categories. Judges should know that since the RWA maintains “any definition of romance should be broad and inclusive,” they might have to read something outside their comfort zone and judge it fairly. If they don’t think they can do that, they shouldn’t be judging.

People, RWA is a big organization, and big organizations move SLOWLY. Sorry girls, it’s the way of the world. I rarely see RWA getting credit for the changes it’s made. (THAT ATTEMPT TO DEFINE ROMANCE WAS REJECTED BY THE MAJORITY! Give credit where it’s due.) More and more epubs are being recognized because of changes adopted by the board. More changes are under consideration and will come. Hell, look how long it’s taken trad. pubs to start releasing books in e-format.

The RITAs are a HUGE contest. Over a thousand entries, multiplied by five copies of each book, and that’s just the first round. So you want to allow e-format? How many more entries would that be? How many more judges? How would the people in the office deal with the different media? What about judges who don’t WANT to read something in e-format or in manuscript form? Would they be allowed to opt out of judging those? HUGE changes would have to be made! Is it possible? I’d imagine so. Would it take time? HELL YEAH! Time and manpower and big fucking mistakes made and years of bitching from epubbed people and traditionally pubbed people and oh my god the drama!

So take a deep breath. If you want to help the changes along, stay in RWA and work at it. It will take time. Maybe a long time. If you’re just done with it, then that’s cool too.

For fringe stuff like erotica

Do you mean erotica or erotic Romance?  Because erotic Romance seems pretty hot (couldn’t resist) in a sort of mainstream way, and I’m not sure Romantic erotica is far behind (they’re hard to avoid, aren’t they?).  Or is it just fringe in terms of the RITA judging?

If I had to give the whole book one score, the objectionable behavior of the hero would ahve made the score much lower, although there were things I liked about the book. But as an overall love story, I wouldn’t have been able to--I did not want this man to have a happy ending and felt very bad for the heroine ending up with someone who would use her in such a careless fashion. Because there were lots of technical scores etc., I believe the book got a much fairer score from me.

It seems to me that the system you’re talking about here is actually much *more objective* than what’s currently in place, in that is acknowledges and embraces both the emotional and craft elements in the judging process.  Wow, compromise—what a concept.

People, RWA is a big organization, and big organizations move SLOWLY. Sorry girls, it’s the way of the world. I rarely see RWA getting credit for the changes it’s made. (THAT ATTEMPT TO DEFINE ROMANCE WAS REJECTED BY THE MAJORITY! Give credit where it’s due.)

Good point, Victoria; that was a big victory for the genre as a whole, IMO.  I tend to see change as inevitable but shaped by those active enough to remain engaged in the process, including hard-core activists and casual observers.

Also, is it true that the contest closes at 1000 entries and that it’s on a first-come, first-served basis?

Victoria: So you want to allow e-format? How many more entries would that be? How many more judges? How would the people in the office deal with the different media? What about judges who don’t WANT to read something in e-format or in manuscript form?

I’m not asking to be allowed to send in eformat copies of my ebooks. I am entirely in sympathy with those who don’t want to read electronic copies of books—I’m epublished and I don’t like reading ebooks, because I have a combination of medical problems that make them significantly harder work to read than dead tree books. (Manuscript is another matter, so long as it’s 12 point double-spaced Courier, yadda yadda.) But right now, what that rule effectively says is that I am not allowed to create and send in a properly printed and bound copy of my ebook. (Easy enough to do, by putting the pdf through Lulu.) My publisher has to produce the print book and send it in.

If there are too many entries as it is, perhaps the way to trim the number of entries is to impose the same rule on the print-published authors. They have to get their publishers to send in the reading copies. Fair, yes?

Marlys wrote:
No. And we’ll continue to be on the fringes unless we get into the standing categories. Judges should know that since the RWA maintains “any definition of romance should be broad and inclusive,” they might have to read something outside their comfort zone and judge it fairly. If they don’t think they can do that, they shouldn’t be judging.

Well… yeah. But for some, probably a lot of these people, their definition of “broad and inclusive” might allow for whipped cream, not alternative lifestyles. Which is why I think GLBT should have its own category, so that judges who can be open-minded can select it. Then, eventually, maybe there won’t be a need to separate it out like that. But in order to get your shot at the Rita, you have to be sure you’re getting judges who are open to what you write. Otherwise, you’re sunk before you begin. Baby steps.

Robin wrote:
Do you mean erotica or erotic Romance?  Because erotic Romance seems pretty hot (couldn’t resist) in a sort of mainstream way, and I’m not sure Romantic erotica is far behind (they’re hard to avoid, aren’t they?).  Or is it just fringe in terms of the RITA judging?

Is there a difference between erotica and erotic romance? I’m not saying that to be snarky, I really don’t know. I mean, there’s a lot of very hot yet mainstream stuff out there that could qualify as erotic romance. When I say fringe, I mean stuff that you don’t find in the regular romance section at Barnes and Noble, the stuff that’s not published by the big NYC publishers. Harlequin’s got the Spice line out now which I think is starting to bridge that gap, but I’m talking about the underdogs who don’t have the big publishing names behind them.

Also, is it true that the contest closes at 1000 entries and that it’s on a first-come, first-served basis?

That’s my understanding. If you go to rwanational.org, all the contest rules and regs are up there.

I’m not asking to be allowed to send in eformat copies of my ebooks. I am entirely in sympathy with those who don’t want to read electronic copies of books—I’m epublished and I don’t like reading ebooks, because I have a combination of medical problems that make them significantly harder work to read than dead tree books. (Manuscript is another matter, so long as it’s 12 point double-spaced Courier, yadda yadda.) But right now, what that rule effectively says is that I am not allowed to create and send in a properly printed and bound copy of my ebook. (Easy enough to do, by putting the pdf through Lulu.) My publisher has to produce the print book and send it in.

Exactly. My complaint isn’t solely that I can’t send in an ebook, but that the contest guidelines won’t accept my book’s format or give me a good alternative. Effectively I am told that even though my book was published by a recognized publisher, is within the word count, and fits all the guidelines, it isn’t good enough to enter the RITA with.

And by the way…

So you want to allow e-format? How many more entries would that be? How many more judges?