First things first, I’ve been brainstorming names for the new competition that instantly capture the spirit and structure.
“The Slush Cutters Award” nicely reflects that Amazon ebooks are the new slush pile, available for any determined soul to dig through for buried treasure, which the award hopes to narrow down to the better books. “Indie Uppercut Awards” also indirectly reflects the progressive cutting to leave the best books. Both of these are fun and punchy, but maybe lacking in gravitas.
The third option, which seems to be a winner, is “The Indie Sci-Fi Keystone Awards”. We could also call it “The Keystone Cup”, (a play on “Keystone Cops”) but the core idea reflects the structure where all the indie books work together to elevate each other in a way no book could do alone. It makes for a nice logo design, though I am open to more skilled artists doing a better job.
Below, I will present a text based account of the improved structure of the competition, but if that is a horror to comprehend then look out below for a simplified infographic version of the proposed flow. Keep in mind the devil is in the details, so please read the whole outline before making suggestions.
The key insight is that authors can be trusted to pick out a good novel without being forced to read the whole damn thing. This might allow the inaugural Keystone finalists to be announced before the SPSFC4 winners. Wouldn’t that be something!
So here is the latest outline of the contest structure, complete with notes about the goals that motivated the design at each step.
Step 1.
Entrants fill out an email form that separates:
Title
Cover image
Blurb
Opening 1000 words
First 200 words of each chapter
Plot outline (broken down by chapter) (<2000 words)
Climax scene (<2000 words)
Style classifiers for their book (hard/soft sci fi, grim/cozy, etc on a 1-10 scale)
Subgenre categories (checkboxes)
Optional- Entrants pay a modest entry fee (100% spent on advertising the competition)
Optional - Donations to pay for advertising the competition.
Goal- Entrants pre-structure submitted writing to streamline admin and judging.
Goal- Small upfront monetary barrier of entry to unserious applicants.
Proceed when whole number multiple of chosen subgroup size of entrants qualify.
Step 2
Preliminary competition for title/cover/blurb.
All entrants select top 10 entrants in each category.
Entrants who miss voting deadline cut from contest.
Aggregate scores announced immediately to celebrate stand out titles/covers/blurbs.
Goal- Create buzz for entire field and create content for social media promotion
Goal- Set entrant expectations for meeting contest requirements on time.
Step 3.
Entrants submit links showing they promoted the contest on social media.
Each entrant gets 10 random promo links submitted by other entrants and ranks from most to least effective.
Entrants who miss feedback on promo deadline cut.
Entrants with consistently low aggregate ranking for promo links cut at admin discretion.
Goal- Harness entrants to promote contest widely.
Admin- Uses funds to further boost paid promotion reusing content from most effective entrant promotion efforts.
Step 4.
Entrants put in subgroups based on hard/soft, grim/cozy etc qualities. (Ideally sets of 8)
Sample first chapter (1000 words) plus three random chapter openings (200 words) from each entry sent to other entrants in subgroup.
Total reading of (1000 + 3x200) x 7 = 11,200 words per entrant.
Entrants rank the hook and prose of the writing samples from best to worst.
Entrants write 200 words (+/- 10%) of constructive feedback on each entry in subgroup (7x200 words = 1400 words total).
Entrants who miss feedback submission deadline cut.
Goal- Give entrants writing samples that match their own taste.
Goal- Sample hook and prose across entire novel for fair assessment.
Step 5.
Sets of 10 x 200 word feedbacks are randomly distributed to all entrants in contest.
Entrants read 10 x 200 words feedback and rank it from most to least constructive.
Entrants with lowest aggregate rank for feedback quality cut at admin discretion.
Goal- Motivate entrants to submit quality feedback (trade off with speed in step 4)
Goal- Mechanism to eliminate bad faith entrants without burden falling on admin.
Step 6.
Use aggregate prose sample ranking score to cut remaining entrants to 50% of original pool.
Remaining half of entrants proceed to semifinal round.
Goal- Give all compliant entrants constructive feedback on prose quality.
Goal- Give all semifinalists a mark of above average prose quality.
Step 7.
Entrants put into subgroups with similar subgenre designations (Ideally groups of 8).
Entrants provided 7 x plot outlines (7 x 2000 words) and climax scene (7 x 2000 words) from rest of subgroup (28 000 words read total)
Entrants write 7 x 500 words (+/- 10%) constructive feedback on plot outline/climax (3500 words written total)
Entrants rank 7 plots/climaxes from best to worst.
Entrants who miss submission deadlines cut.
Goal- Time efficient sampling of plot structure.
Goal- All semifinalists get multiple sets of feedback on plot structure.
Step 8.
Random sets of 10 x feedback on plot outlines/climaxes allocated to all entrants.
Entrants rank outline/climax feedback from most to least constructive.
Entrants who miss submission deadline cut.
Entrant(s) with lowest aggregate feedback evaluation score cut at admin discretion.
Goal- Incentivise the sharing of high quality plot/climax feedback.
Step 9.
Aggregate plot/climax ranking scores to reduce the field to 25% of original pool.
Goal- Create pool of finalist entries filtered for prose quality and plot/climax.
Goal- Trust authors are can compare novels without reading entire work.
Goal- Quickly filter entrants to highlight the best 25% and focus audience attention.
Step 10.
Finalist ebooks placed on sale for 99 cents for a limited period (a condition of entry)
Entrants that fail to participate cut and replaced with next highest ranked semifinalist.
Finalist pool promoted with advertising fund.
Prospective entrants of future contests email text of review to admin, date stamped before review appears online as proof of authorship.
Reviewers also must submit links to self published books to prove indie author status.
Reviewer/authors gain points for each review deemed adequate by admin. Gives author higher priority for inclusion in future contests.
Goal- Create a concentrated spike in sales to push finalists up Amazon rankings.
Goal- Give indie readers a time efficient way to buy best quality discount ebooks.
Goal- Incentivise future entrants to buy, read and review finalists.
Goal- Avoid “first come first served” entry process if number of entrants grows.
Overall I think this model is close to workable, though a small trial run with 32 entries would be a good initial experiment.
The maximum reading commitment for those who make it to the semifinals is 46200 words (the length of a single short novel) and the writing commitment is 4900 words (the length of a typical short story). The structure means these commitments will not increase if the entrant pool size increases, due to the creation of more subgroups at key stages. The size of the subgroups and required reading/writing load could be adjusted, though I feel 5 would be a minimum viable size giving 33 000 words of writing and 3500 words writing required per semifinalist.
Entrants might skim the required reading, but this may risk their feedback being judged inadequate. Including the reference prose samples with the feedback undergoing independent evaluation could be worthwhile so the person judging knows the context. Further contribution to reviewing finalists is voluntary, though I predict each entrant will read and review a few personal stand outs.
This competition flow progressively filters out the books with the strongest prose, then most effective plots. All finalists are winners, given a structured promotional opportunity comparable to a Bookbub deal at the cost of sharing their own writing expertise rather than a wad of cash. There is no real reason to further narrow the field to one official winner, and doing so is against the spirit of indie fiction in my opinion. Non-finalists could also voluntarily discount their book to join the sales frenzy.
All feedback and feedback evaluation will be channeled through the admin and kept anonymous, so constructive honesty will be encouraged at all times. This competition is not just for the winners, but I also want those who get eliminated early to still gain an opportunity to improve their writing.
So that is the current state of my thinking. The back end work to create and test email-spreadsheet dataflow systems will take a bit of hair pulling but should take me about a month and then I can officially call for entries.
If anyone has suggestions on this technical front I am all ears. Likewise tell me your thoughts on the suggested name for the contest, the logo, the structure as outlined here, your hopes and fears and dreams.
I have one final idea for a really fun add on to the contest, but I will keep that one under my hat for now since I think it will have more impact if we announce it once the contest has begun.
How would it affect the subgroup distribution of the authors’ writings if someone is dropped for time/quality reasons? Wouldn’t this be imbalanced, as now some people aren’t getting as much feedback/votes and not having to review as much either? I feel like it would have downstream effects too since those groups would be smaller, but I’m too tired to be sure rn lol