Beginning of the year is what I consider “The Awards Season”. It is when the nominations are being opened, list of worthy works circulate the internet, and people talk on what should be nominated. Some awards already opened the nominations (or voting) while others will do so soon(ish). Hugos, ESFS Awards, Janusz A. Zajdel Award, FAAn Awards, and more. Also the Fan Funds races are usually open at this time of the year. What it all means to me?
Tough Choices
I am not nominating as often as I would like to. The truth is that I am quite behind the schedule when it comes to the new stories. Yet I think that nominations are important and whenever there is someone or something I find worthy of an award I nominate.
Hugo winners in Dublin in 2019.
It happens to me that I find it difficult to make the decision. I tend to question myself whether my opinion is “valid”. It makes no sense but this is what I sometimes feel. I suppose I am not the only one who has such doubts. What I do to overcome this issue is trusting the process. Others will make their nominations too. Should I be the only one who thought of given work it won’t make it to the final ballot. If many people nominated the same work, then it clearly deserved the nomination. This is one of the reasons I believe that nominations are important. The more people submit their ballots the better short list reflects the voice of the community giving the award.
Memory
What is a challenge is actually remembering who is eligible for given award. A few years ago I read a superb short story. I wanted to nominate it for Janusz A. Zajdel Award but when nomination period came I forgot to do so. I realized my mistake when it was already too late.
ESFS Awards from 2022.
Luckily there are resources that may be helpful when nominating. First of those that come to mind are unofficial lists with eligible candidates. I am aware of the following for this year, but I am sure there are more available:
- The Hugo Spreadsheet of Doom from Lady Business
- The Incompleat Register 2024 by Nick Farey – listing works and people eligible for the FAAn Awards. It can be also a good source for Hugo Awards nominations (but eligibility criteria differ)
- The list of works eligible for Janusz A. Zajdel Award prepared by Zew Zajdla Team
Other very useful source of information are potential nominees. For some years I am observing people mentioning their eligibility in Social Media – and it is awesome. This allows fans, who, like me, are forgetful, to recall whom/what they liked in previous year.
ESFS Awards handed out in Belfast in 2019.
Promoting Yourself
I am a big fan of “eligibility reminder” posts. As stated above they help to recall what one liked. There is another positive aspect to them though – they allow creators to look back at what they achieved. Please allow me for an anecdote – I had to do list of completed tasks at work. Only doing it I realized how many things I managed to complete in previous 12 months. Looking back is a good way to understand how busy we sometimes are!
Some people don’t like such posts, and they have good reasons for that. The line between “I am eligible for X” and “My friends/followers please nominate me for X” is very thin. It happens that some people try to affect the nominations in a way that is completely against the spirit of given award. Last year I stumbled upon a post where author asked everyone to nominate them for a prestigious SFF award. They were offering their ebooks as a reward(?) for such favour. I hope it is a very rare situation as it was the only case where I saw someone trying to “bribe” potential nominators. Having said that, I am sure that there were more cases where someone tried to campaign for themselves.
Each year Hugo Awards have different base. Here some examples are visible as exhibited at Worldcon 75 in Helsinki.
Opinions as to what is a fair reminder and what is unfair campaigning differ among fans. I won’t try to draw an objective line here. This is something that each potential nominator must decide for themselves. From my perspective mentioning eligibility is OK and going further becomes tricky.
This Year I Will Nominate and Vote
There are very good reasons to participate in the awards process. I already mentioned one – the more nominators/voters the better the Award reflects the opinion of the group that gives it. Another reason is the fact that only through participation our voice can be heard. “Our” candidate may make it to the final ballot or not, but by skipping nominations we are lowering their chances. The last reason I will write about touches the potential nominees themselves.
Hugo Winners during Glasgow 2024.
Being nominated to, or receiving awards is amazing. At least when one cares about the award in question. We are capable of granting this honour to those who gave us something we value. Whether this was a book, a painting, a short story, an article, or a game. Nomination will (hopefully) mean something to those whose work we treasure. In some cases this may have financial impact in others it will affect only egoboo. Whatever the case it shows our appreciation.
Considering the last reason to nominate/vote I’ll do my best to do so this year. I already filled-in my FAAn Awards ballot. I am now thinking how to nominate in the Hugos. For those awards I will concentrate on the fannish categories (which are closer to my heart) but I also have one novel I plan to recognize.
The Polish Janusz A. Zajdel Award had for years a slogan that would translate to “Read it? Liked it? Nominate it!” (Czytałeś? Podobało się? Nominuj!). So should you have an option to vote or nominate for some awards please consider doing so.
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