I’m a sucker for book awards. Ever since I read Island Of The Blue Dolphins as a child and saw that “Newberry Medal” on the cover I was programmed. A gold seal on a book meant a good story. To this day I hunt down the Edgar, Man Booker, Orange Prize and Pulitzer short lists every year, searching for that fantastic read.
I’ve been very open about not preferring Inspirational Fiction as a genre as I find it too didactic in general and feel the quality often suffers from its inherently narrow market strictures. Over the past two years as I’ve come to know more authors of Inspirational Fiction I’ve read more of it and even fallen in love with some terrific examples of the genre. The book I hold in high esteem as being the example of what good Inspirational Fiction can be is Catherine Marshall’s Christy.*
I am apparently not alone in my esteem for this novel, because when the heads of the Christian Publishing Industry decided to launch their Award for excellence in Christian Fiction they named that Award the “Christy”, using the original logotype from the novel’s jacket design debossed on a bronze background.
When I was browsing the Nashville Public Library’s ebook selections I saw a book that intrigued me, backed away when I realised it was Inspirational Fiction but then that Christy sticker on the cover art caught my eye. My slavish devotion to award-winning books trumped my prejudice and I downloaded it that very moment.
It was a dreadful book–poorly written, poorly edited, ploddingly plotted. I have serious doubts that the book would have made it past the acquisition editor at a secular publishing house, let alone that it would have been singled out by an award committee for the industry’s highest honour. I returned the book early and angrily and thought no more about it–until this year’s Christy Awards shortlist books were announced.** I looked (in vain) for my personal pick–Robynn Tolbert’s Star Of Justice and recognised none of the other titles. What was up with the Christy?
Turns out…The Christy Award is NOT a “book award” in the traditional sense. It is A LICENSING AGREEMENT!
I should know. I negotiated, edited, issued and managed HUNDREDS of licensing contracts, sought licensing partnerships and oversaw payment on those contracts on a quarterly basis. Say you run a t-shirt company and you want to put Care Bears on your t-shirts. You get in touch with their representative, send anywhere from a dozen to two-dozen of your product to that person along with an estimate of the amount of money you expect the shirts to make. If they approve you, you give them a portion of their percentage upfront–anywhere from $500-$10,000. In return they send you a “style guide” that has the specific art you have to use, along with all the Pantone colours and the regulations about how big their art has to be. “The Care Bear Must appear on at least 45% of the exposed area of the front of the shirt.” That kind of thing. You make the product and ostensibly sell more shirts with Care Bears on them than you would if they were plain shirts.
That, my friends, is how the Christy “Award” works. Unlike legitimate Book Awards which traditionally request one copy of the submitted work, the Christy requests SEVEN copies, along with a submission fee of $175. (In Contrast the Newberry Award and Man Booker Prize require no entry fee.) If you WIN a Christy you award you get…to pay $1000 for the honour of putting the Christy Medal on your book cover so that your book sells more copies.
That, my friends, is a licensing arrangement. It is NOT an award. The Christy was established by Christian PUBLISHERS; the criteria are prohibitive for the growing number of self-published and small-press books in the Inspirational Field. Since all the Christian fiction I actually liked last year was either self-pubbed or small press is it any wonder they’re not on here? What person running their business on a shoestring–or at least a strand of worsted weight yarn–can pony up what amounts to nearly $1500 once the books and postage are added to the entry fee and the due bill for the winner?
I’ve spent two hours combing through other awards; some like the Man Booker Prize do charge an advertising fee from the winning publisher as well as a required contribution to the prize pool. But they do in turn reward a cash prize far greater than the required submission so if you win you are not actually in the hole for doing so. Others require nothing more than one or two copies of the book in question along with a neatly typed form.
As a reader who regularly purchases books because they’re Award Winners I feel duped. I feel like this is nothing more than a cadre of cronies looking for a new angle to market their product.
I also feel great pity for the Christy winners and short-listed authors because they’re literally being sold a bill of goods. Literally. If you “win” the Christy you get a little sticker for your book cover and a bill for $1000. The idea, of course, is that “award” will net you increased sales. Pretty much like any other licensing arrangement.
ETA
What follows is the statement with which I posted this to Facebook. I realise after some comments that this information wasn’t clear in the entry itself, so I’m adding it in an effort to prevent further confusion.
[T]his post is not [intended to be] a reflection on the quality of this year’s selected titles. I feel like as a person who does NOT write books that would be considered I was in the unique position to write this post.
[I] haven’t read any of this year’s books. I have two from last year in my TBR folder. I want to stress repeatedly that the way this licensing agreement is run does NOT mean that the approved licensees are bad books….not at all. It DOES mean however that scores of good, even great, books aren’t considered because of the prohibitive terms of the licensing agreement.
——-
*Though this is almost universally acknowledged as the pinnacle of the genre, so much so that the awards of the genre are named for it, there is still no e-book version of the original novel available. Thomas Nelson has carved up the original novel into episodes and remarketed those as Young Adult books for the e-reader market. I’ve written about this before; the problem still exists.
** This link is accidentally for the 2012 winners. I’m looking for an official shortlist that doesn’t appear on other blogs.
And here it is….
I only learned about this recently, from an indie publisher. Being that he’s trying to get recognition in the industry for his press and titles, he felt that putting some titles in the ringer may give them a boost. The press was so small, however, that he had to get an agreement from the authors that, if one of them won, they’d all split the $1,000 fee. One of his books DID win and, apparently, he is seeing payoff from the Christy sticker, because he’s entered books into the awards since.
I’m going to link this post in the morning. I hope it gets more widely read.
I will be the FIRST to say that it’s very good business. I believe in licensing. In my experience, licensed product always outsells its unbranded counterpart. I can see why the small press in question literally went for broke.
But as a READER??? It’s a cheat. It passes itself off as something it’s not.
As a Christian? Do I really need to explain why I think deception, subterfuge and manipulation are poor tools for making money?
Pardon the brevity and the typos. This was sent from my iPhone.
This. I would love for my authors to win any kind of awards, but too often the entry pricing is prohibitive. The awards I hold in highest esteem actually don’t even cost a thing!
Not only do the Newberry and Caldecott medals not cost anything to enter, they tell you about it in this really cheery way. “There is no entry fee for the Newberry Medal Of Honor.” I feel like it should be followed with either a smiley emoticon or “(you silly goose)”
We writers are conditioned to associate anything writing-related you pay for up front as a bit if a scam, so I can see why the Newberry people are emphatic.
Pardon the brevity and the typos. This was sent from my iPhone.
I just got through reading The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (again) and this reminds me of the cheerfully opening doors on the Heart of Gold…
I can even understand an entry fee–a moderate one–to help weed out authors who aren’t entering for serious reasons and to pay for the running of the contest itself. The Newbery being as established as it is, may not need to charge fees if it’s supported financially in other ways and may have enough judges to handle an onslaught of entries. (They also don’t likely read past the first page of many of them.)
When I found out last year what the guidelines for the Christy were, though, I was astounded. For the same reasons you are. Quality of the entrants aside–the contest is limited to those with deep pockets. It’s also, in my opinion, sneaky to not be forthright about it. I think if readers en masse knew how it operated, they’d cry foul.
And I love that you mention ebooks in this. That is a real issue for me. These days, with nearly every book out there available in both print and ebook, why are these contests still requiring print copies? Why can judges not read an entry on Kindle or Nook? I recently was nominated for an award and the contest required five or six print copies, each sent to a different address! My publisher (hi, Grace!) wrote and asked if we could please send ebook copies–and they said yes, and all the judges came back with a need for mobi copies, which tells me they are reading on their Kindles. So why not ebook in the first place?? (I didn’t win that award, unfortunately, but it was one I wasn’t expecting to win, as my novels aren’t overtly Christian. But at least I didn’t spend a fortune on print books and postage to not win.)
Since you open with the Newbery Medal, it may not be out of place for me to mention that E. L. Konigsburg died last Friday. May her memory be a blessing.
NO!!!! Oh man.
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Katherine, THANK YOU! I feel there are some ethical issues with how Christian publishing works at its core, despite the fact that the industry is filled with wonderful and sincere people. I’m an award-winning Christian author…I have won two CAROL Awards (seen as the second highest award) by an author-nominated system which is more open and fair, not publisher-nominated. Yesterday, I objected at length in an author’s online group to the fact that there have been obvious problems with the Christy Awards, to the effect that the best books have clearly not won in some years, though it’s a mixed bag and naturally some good books have won over the years. I said that it should not be touted as the top award in our industry. Because I have won top awards and I have a doctorate in English, I felt that I had more justification than simply “sour grapes” to question how this award has been handled and who is exerting such powerful control over our industry. ESPECIALLY since we are called “Christian” publishing, and for a believer, that label should bear great responsibility.
Naturally, this post of mine was not met with smiles and glee. In fact, it was definitely something of a career-limiting move in Christian publishing, because there is no forum in our industry for open debate of this sort and it is NOT welcome or taken in a reasonable way, no matter how fairly or reasonably one makes one’s point, or how much one qualifies it by saying this is about systems, not about people.
So, that’s why I appreciate your post. 🙂 I don’t care about repercussions for me personally in the industry. Some causes are worth dying on that hill, and one of those causes is whether people are stinking up an industry that by its Christian label should be run openly, fairly, and non-exclusively. I call on the Christian publishing industry to examine itself and provide a forum for open debate of these issues, and whether our industry is truly welcoming and as fair as we can make it for all published authors. You can’t object to critique if you won’t provide a forum for objective discussion of whether our practices match scripture.
Congrats on the CAROL awards! Peer recognition may not be as vaunted as the bigger-name Christy but after what I’ve learned I think it’s definitely the more earnest. Not that many of the recipients of the Christy aren’t great books–it’s just that with the playing field so skewed there’s really not an assurance for us readers that they are indeed the best books in any given year.
Much of Christian-targeted publishing in 2013 reminds me more and more of the Church circa 800 A.D. A small central body decides what is okay to say and what is not okay to say and bishoprics (“awards”) are bought and sold in high-stakes backroom deals.
The more things change…
Being the person I am, I was trained as a child to run like hell from any award-winning books because I hated, hated, hated teachers and librarians (thought they were all biased, judgmental snots). I, therefore, carefully avoided their book recommendations. Nowadays, I don’t care either way. I read everything, including the award winners.
That doesn’t really surprise me about the Christy, though. It just reinforces my worst cynicism.
That thing below about the books is supposed to be a reply to this. (I’m really eloquent on zero hours of sleep.)
It doesn’t necessarily surprise me about the Christy being a racket. But as a reader–and that’s my only skin in this game as I don’t write books for that genre–I’m mightily ticked off.
I’m refraining from saying all I think of this as a Christian because, honestly, I’m concerned about the effect on my blood pressure.
Please please please tell me that you have since childhood read _Island Of The Blue Dolphins_ and _From The Mixed-up Files Of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler_ (R.I.P. E.L. Konigsberg). Even if those books weren’t mega award winners they are some of the best books ever written. Ever. For anybody.
Those are two of my favorites, also. But if you want to be reminded of reading as a youngster, take a look at the Amazon Kindle page for From the Mixed-Up Files and scroll through the “Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought” list.
The Mixed Up Files is one of my favorite books of all time. I didn’t know it was an award winner. I think my mom bought it from one of those scholastic book thingies, so I grew up with it. But, no, I was prejudiced against Island of the Blue Dolphins. Do you think I should read it?
I saved my allowance for six weeks to buy a copy when I was 8. That was after the school library told me I had to stop checking it out so other kids could have a turn.
Pardon the brevity and the typos. This was sent from my iPhone.
Island of the Blue Dolphins was my favorite book when I was a kid. Actually, it’s still one of my favorites. Please give it a try.
Reblogged this on wordsandpicturesbj and commented:
Stuff like this is why I don’t take, by and large, the modern traditional Christian publishing market seriously. The best Christian fiction I’ve read that’s been published this century has been self-pub. I don’t expect that to change any time soon.
Well, call me naive. I had no idea. When I think of all the times I’ve seen “Christy Award winner!” in a review and thought the book might be worth investigating—or worse, envied the author. Good thing I’m a contrarian and often to steer clear of award-winning anything.
I’m sorry you feel this way, Katherine. I do not necessarily agree with the Christy Award’s policy for winners, but I do understand why they feel they need to do it.
What I think is especially unfortunate in your note is that it implies that the Christy Award is something that is purchased, that it is in no sense a legitimate award. That’s not an accurate assessment.
I do understand your point to a certain degree: The high entry fee and winner’s “contribution” keeps most small presses away. This has the unintended effect of limiting the entrants mostly to novels published by larger publishing houses, for whom the $1,000 winner’s contribution is not so much a big deal.
If you take as an assumption that only bad novels are published by large publishing houses, then, yes, the Christy Award is always won by bad novels. But such an assumption is inaccurate. There are amazingly wonderful novels published by small presses and by individual authors, and there are amazingly wonderful novels published by larger traditional houses. Same with bad books: Both publishing routes are capable of producing them.
Perhaps the winner you read came in a category that didn’t have many entrants that year, for whatever reason, and the judges simply chose the best of the bunch. I don’t know. But to extrapolate out and assume that every Christy Award-winner is sub-par is a bit like saying that one spoiled banana proves that all bananas are spoiled.
Remember that the Christy Award was created before our current publishing revolution. Outside of traditional publishing houses, there really was no legitimate publishing option in that day. The award organizers wanted to find a way to celebrate excellence in Christian fiction, and the Award is what they came up with. Has the publishing environment changed on them? Yes. Should they change how they do things? Maybe. But it is unfair to imply that all the award is about is making money and selling the award.
If publishers don’t want to enter the Christy Award, they don’t have to. No one has to enter.
As for a Christy Award win causing increased sales for the winning book, I would have to say that this is also not the case. My small publishing company has had the honor of winning the Christy Award twice and the ACFW Carol Award twice, In no case has the winning book received a statistically significant bump in sales after the award win was announced.
The awards do serve to enhance the prestige of the winning publishers and authors, and there are indirect ways the awards have helped. For instance, we had been unable to get our books listed with CBD until one of our novels was named a Christy finalist, and then CBD asked us if they could carry our books. LOL.
The Christy Award and similar awards are imperfect, but they are valuable. The judges work earnestly to identify the best novels from the ones they’re asked to choose between. We can debate the efficacy or justice of such things, but I hope we can keep in mind that their intent is not to sell the award to anyone who can pay, but to identify and celebrate excellence in Christian fiction.
Jeff, pardon me but NOWHERE did I say that all Christy winners were bad books. Nowhere. I didn’t like the one book I read that won a Christy umpteen years ago.
You are vastly mischaracterising my position on this.
But I do stick by my assertion that it is not an ‘award’ in the sense that the general public perceived awards.
It is a limited license. Disney grants limited licenses in the same way. Companies submit their products for consideration. If Disney (or Apple or Marvel or….) approves of the product said item gets to bear the Logo and approved marks of the licensor.
You have to make quality products to get approved for a brand license.
The same goes for these books. They have to be of an approved quality. Just because I think Gilbert Morris’ novel was not good doesn’t mean the brand is dilute.
I DO object to calling it an Award.
But you’ve got a few of them and they’ve opened doors for you so you’re bound to disagree. Just know that I as a reader and purchaser no longer view the Christy as the premier award in Christian-targeted Fiction.
I’m sorry I mischaracterized your thoughts. Perhaps I read it too quickly, but I thought I got the gist of your implications. Apparently I did not.
I’m not understanding your point about licensing, though. Are you saying that any award that allows the winning entries to bear the symbol of the award is not actually an award anymore? So all those Oscar winners…?
The Christy Award is definitely an award in the sense that the general public perceives awards. Many entries are considered by qualified judges, and the best one (in the opinion of the judges) is given the Christy Award. Does the general public think awards happen in some other way?
I guess, in your definition, an award that charges an entry fee or a “marketing contribution” that winners must pay is no longer a true award? It’s an odd definition, but it’s your blog!
By being cost-prohibitive it is self-limiting to an absurd degree. You say the award “celebrates the best in Christian Fiction.”
It actually celebrates the best of an artificially narrow pool of Christian Fiction. Every other major book award that requires a winner to pay for the marketing package grants prize monies well in excess of the cost of that package.
When I think of book awards I think of a cash prize, commemorative bound copy of the book and other aspects of the prize. That, to me, underscores the Award nature.
The Christy doesn’t do that. It just grants the winner the right to display the award medallion.
When entries are designed to be cost-prohibitive and prizes are non-existent it’s not a true book prize. It’s a device the publishers use for cache.
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Who’s Who. That’s what this reminds me of. Who’s Who. That thing that for so many years was thought to be a mark of prestige and professionalism but then turned out to be a Johnny Gladhand marketing scheme.
Pardon the brevity and the typos. This was sent from my iPhone.
By requiring the winner to PAY $1000 to be able to say that they won an award, it’s a licencing agreement. It’s one thing to require a few copies of the book or a small amount – like $50, although I’m still against any amount having to be paid – but to require a total commitment of over $1200 to be able to enter and win this award, you’re pricing most authors out of the running.
You sound offended here, Katherine.
But in Jeff’s defense, you did title this blog as “The Best Book Award Money Can Buy” which implies the publishers just pay for their books to win. Then you spend a few paragraphs on how poorly written a Christy-winning book was.
So, while you may not have intended to say that Christy books were bad books, you did imply that the Christy Award was a shady pay-to-play scheme, and that SOME books don’t deserve to be winners.
…which could be the case in every award ever, right? Some movies don’t, IMO, deserve to be Oscar winners. Some singers don’t deserve to be on the radio, etc, etc,. That’s subjective, though. As are all contests.
I’m offended by him putting words in my mouth and then arguing against my presumed but not stated opinion.
The Christys ARE pay-to-play. Whether or not you find that “shady” would depend, I assume, on what you believe to be ethical.
I wish folks would quit comparing the Christys to the Oscars. Books aren’t movies. You’re comparing apples to whitewall tires.
If you wish to compare the Christys to something, compare them to the Edgars, the PEN/Faulkner, the Man Booker, the Pulitzer, the Newberry, the Caldecott. These are BOOK awards (with the Edgars also now giving awards to TV and Film.) They at least give a trophy. The ones that do require a kickback from the winner–excuse me, an advertising package fee–at least pay out more than the fee so you aren’t fiscally penalised for winning.
And it is an award that money buys. No one can enter without paying, and no one can accept without paying an exponentially larger amount than the entry fee.
I’m moving the disclaimer from my FB post to the front of this post so that my feelings about the winners are clear.
Yes, they certainly are valuable, if you have to pay that much for them. From where I sit, from what I’ve been taught for years from conferences and places like Absolute Write Water Cooler, a contest you have to pay dearly for is a scam and is to be avoided. A small to moderate entrance fee is far more usual, with no further fees for winning. That’s the true scam right there: you won, now pay us $1000.
I agree with that. An entry fee to prove that the author means it (and to help the award organization pay for the awards and marketing) is a good thing. But an additional fee for winning is outrageous. Most people wouldn’t understand that. Most people think the winner–be it a sporting event or pie eating contest–should WIN money, not have to pay more.
“Perhaps the winner you read came in a category that didn’t have many entrants that year, for whatever reason, and the judges simply chose the best of the bunch.”
The “reason” is likely the steep reverse-prize for winning.
I’m also not sure why the Christy being established before the “current publishing revolution” has to do with the way it’s structured. Seems that a contest is a contest is a contest, and other than the Christy EVERY contest I’ve ever heard of ends in the winner getting money or some other prize FROM the contest rather than giving it TO the contest, even if that prize is of lesser monetary value than the (reasonable) entry fee. The Christy *is* different.
You are right, Kat: The Christy Award is different. I have never been a fan of the “marketing contribution.” I would much rather win money than pay!
But the implication here has been that this difference invalidates it as a true contest, which is inaccurate. Like I said before, no one has to enter this contest. The fact that publishers still do so is an indicator that there is some value in the award.
The other implication here has been that the Christy Award is something you simply purchase, like inclusion in a Who’s Who book, and that is also inaccurate. If that were the case, then everyone who entered would “win,” and that is not what happens.
I do wish the Christy Award would change how it works, and I’ve dialogued with the organizer about this, but it remains an elective process, and right now enough publishers are electing to participate that it’s still in operation.
My comment about the publishing revolution was to say that, back when the Christy Award was begun, there weren’t as many self-publishing and small press authors wanting to be considered for the award. It was an awards program asking corporations to chip in $1,000 to help market the winners. Not as big a deal to multi-million-dollar publishers. Unusual, maybe even outrageous, but apparently not unconscionable, or it never would’ve taken off. Now, with so many small-scale publishing avenues out there, the award seems like an exclusivist club. But that’s not how it began, imo.
Jeff, you bring up some good points. I can see what you’re saying now about the creation of the award. If no small presses existed for it to discriminate against, and it was sort of a joint effort of the large presses to increase marketing for the Christian fiction genre as a whole, then yes, I can understand that to a point.
And I don’t see it as something you purchase, like the Who’s Who…but it’s still exclusively there for those who can afford the award–and I think that narrows down–not eliminates–but narrows down its validity. Yes, the winners are chosen by judges the way they are in other contests, but there is a price tag that I think would turn a lot of, if not most, readers’ opinions about the award if it were common knowledge outside the Christian publishing world.
I appreciate that you’ve talked to the organizer about this point. I think they need to get that this is a real issue. Christian publishing is not taken seriously in too many ways, and this is not helping.
Thanks for your kind reply, Kat.
I don’t understand your point about readers being turned off about the Christy Award if they found out that winning publishers have to pay a “marketing contribution.” If anything, I’d think they’d feel sorry for publishers having to pay it!
It becomes something of a dubious honor to win and then have to pay, I agree. One might think of it as a winner’s penalty. But it’s not as if the winners won BECAUSE they paid or because they paid more than the other publishers. It’s not an award that goes to the highest bidder.
With apologies to Katherine, I’m going to talk about the Oscars again. We’re talking about awards in the entertainment industry, so it’s a legitimate comparison, and I happen to be related to someone who won an Oscar, so I have a bit more information about it than I do about other book awards.
After the winners are announced onstage and given their little golden guy, they are ushered into a back room where the press is waiting to take photos and ask questions of the winners. Now, the general public doesn’t know about this, and it’s a “price” the winners have to pay that the other nominees didn’t have to pay. Some of the winners may not want to be there, but it doesn’t matter–since they’ve won, they have to face the cameras.
By the definition given here, those two factors mean that the Oscars are not a legitimate award. If the public found out that the winners had to do something they didn’t want to, something the “losers” didn’t have to do, just because they won, would that turn them off of the Oscars? Of course not. We might actually feel a bit of compassion for people who had been through an emotional wringer and then had to be composed enough to pose for glam shots.
I’m not seeing how, if the general public found out about the Christy Award’s “marketing contribution” required of the winning publishers, it would turn them against it or make them think it’s not a legitimate award. It’s a nuisance that the publishers have to decide whether or not they’re going to endure (they decide this before ever entering, of course), so the general public might (rightly) feel that it’s not really their problem, you know? And it doesn’t mean it’s not a legit award.
I’m the general public. My husband is the general public. Many of my friends who read this blog are the general public. I realise you don’t understand why it is our perception that this award is tarnished and I don’t know any other terms I can put it in than to say that the award gives you nothing but prestige and that prestige must be paid for. This award is Jordache jeans for Christian books.
Feel sorry for the publisher? Who pays the winners’ fee? The publisher or the author? I’d feel sorry for the author because one of the reasons authors opt to have their books published is because the publisher pays for publicity. If the publisher isn’t willing to bear the cost of publicity themselves but instead passes that cost off to the author I’d not only not feel sorry for the publisher I’d think much less of that publisher’s ethics. Mike mentioned in comments that some small press asked their authors to split the cost between them should one of the press’ books win. I don’t feel one bit sorry for that publisher at all. I feel quite a bit sorry for all the authors though.
Yes, the “general public” is aware of the press pool after the winners’ podium in the Oscars. The press pool doesn’t cost anything other than nerve and ego. But again, you’re comparing an award which gives nominees gift bags filled with ipods and dom perignon to an award that requires winners to pay $60 for a rubber chicken dinner and another cool grand for the right to tell people that they won a Major Award. Funnily enough, the Oscars are also an award that is widely considered to be “for sale”. Just ask anyone who has been up against The Weinsteins.
[in an aside, why does it matter that you are related to someone who won an Oscar? Mentioning that is like bragging about your IQ or your car. “By the way I have a Porsche, so I know about spending a lot of money.”]
Anyone in the general public who hears that if you win an award you have to pay $1000 is going to go straight back in their mind to all those travel teams, beauty paegents and other pay-to-play functions that mar American Competition.
>> Mike mentioned in comments that some small press asked their authors to split the cost between them should one of the press’ books win. I don’t feel one bit sorry for that publisher at all. I feel quite a bit sorry for all the authors though. <<
I don't think you realize how difficult it is to be a small publisher. (Or even a medium-sized publisher.) Apparently you think "publisher" equates to "rolling in dough," when in most cases, it does not. Same goes for being a published author. Typically, there's more money in dogwalking.
And you're basing your opinion on very few facts. As with many situations, it easy to fault someone else's stride until you've walked a mile in their shoes.
No, I dont at ALL think that being a publisher means “rolling in dough”. Quite the opposite. Most publishers, including “the big guys” are hovering just above broke. That’s another reason why this punitive award fee rankles me.
But when you are a Publisher there are certain risks that come with that job, just as there are risks with being the attorney in a small firm or the owner of a small construction company. One of the myriad reasons authors choose to sign their rights and the bulk of their earnings over to a publisher is so that the book’s publicity will be handled by PR professionals. Most authors these days are having to shoulder more and more of the PR burden–without getting more and more of the percentages of earnings for their work.
This arrangement mentioned above [re. the small press having its authors assume the financial risk of pursuing this award] is indeed one I’m not privy to in its entirety. But I do know that unless the writers are also minority shareholders in the press itself it is an horrific development for authors. It’s the publishing equivalent of being asked to work “off the clock” to help the struggling company. The publisher is negotiating from a power position that forces a writer to go-along-to-get-along.
If Jeff Gerke’s small press is the one in question he himself has admitted that assuming the financial burden for accepting the Christy didn’t pay off for the book(s) in question directly but DID improve the downline fortunes of his company by opening channels of distribution. It’s possible that the writers at his press see this as a win for the team or whatever you want to call it. But I’ve had major skin in the game as a minority shareholder in enough startup tech companies to know full well just how vague a reward these types of things are for everybody concerned. I don’t doubt that writers in this space will keep mum on their feelings of such a development because MLP is seen as “the only game in town” and authors are so programmed to feel grateful that they’ve Been Published that they trade their rights as producers of goods and services for cache.
Clearly that appeals to some authors; you, Kerry, have admitted you’ll apply for any award you possibly can. That’s a personal choice and an assumption of risk you are entitled to make with regard to the product you’ve produced.
But collectivist arrangements whereby someone with a disproportionate amount of profit interest requires contributions from ALL employees in order to assume the risks of the business is just not kosher. In some states it is also illegal.
Look, I know better than most how writer/publisher contracts work, the ethics of employee vs. minority shareholder in the assumption of risk and all other little things that MANY writers are just plain naive about.
That’s another reason why the Christy pay-to-play is an affront to me. It is passed off as an award when it is legally structured as a platypus of award-cum-licensing agreement. Y’all keep trying to liken it to the Oscars because those are a glamourous and high profile award. But I promise you the Christ bears all the hallmarks of a licensing agreement.
My only point about mentioning my relation to an Oscar winner was to say that, before that happened, I had not known about that room of cameras after the awards, but because my relative won, I paid closer attention and learned some things about the awards that, while simply an observing member of the general public, I hadn’t previously known.
The point in question was what the general public would do if they learned certain things about the awards. That was why I brought up that example.
No, I wasn’t bragging about my relative in a way that was designed to bring glory to me. I’m happy to brag about him to bring more glory to him. But his winning doesn’t say anything at all about me. I’m just happy that the win has caused more people to see what we already knew about him.
Thank you for clearing that up. It seemed out of place without knowing your mental context. Out of curiousity, who is he and for what did he win? You must not follow the awards at all because the post-award press pool is common knowledge–as common as the red carpet–to anyone who has followed them.
As to the general public I can assure that every person I’ve put this question to outside of the writing sphere has responded like I did. My sister’s first comment, completely unbidden, was “That sounds like “Who’s Who” to me.”
I understand that as an industry insider with a lot more riding on the Christys ‘ reputation than I have that you’re accentuating the positive. I don’t blame you for that but I do think it is long past time for an overhaul in the Christys’ method of business.
I would be on board with a change in how the Christys are run. I think it has established itself as a premier award for Christian fiction. No need to exact the winner’s contribution to keep up that status. But I understand that the high entry fees and the winner’s contribution go a long way to paying for what they do and how they do it.
No publisher has to enter the Christy Awards, but those who do choose to enter are thereby agreeing to play by those rules. I find great value in other awards, as well, especially the ACFW Carol Award.
If you were to privately ask my authors how I feel about the winner’s contribution, if you knew the story of how we came to enter the Christy Awards at all, you would not have portrayed me as you have.
Because you asked, I will tell you that my brother-in-law Brandon Oldenburg was co-director of the Oscar-winning short animated film “The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore,” which won last year. He is a brilliant artist and animator and visionary, and I am privileged to be related to him.
“I don’t understand your point about readers being turned off about the Christy Award if they found out that winning publishers have to pay a “marketing contribution.” If anything, I’d think they’d feel sorry for publishers having to pay it!”
Yes. Yes! My point is NOT to disparage the publishers/authors who enter — it is to say that the Christy is doing a disservice. It’s not to say that the books are never worthy, which is why in my original comment I said, “Quality of the entrants aside…” Yes, the high winner’s fee (or whatever it is called) limits the entrants, and is therefore not a complete representation of the Christian fiction out there — but what makes me irate is the Christy organization demanding payment for giving the honor of their award. It feels to me that they are using the authors and publishers who enter to market *them* instead of the other way around.
“It feels to me that they are using the authors and publishers who enter to market *them* instead of the other way around.
”
They are. The award marketing structure is based on the assumption that the publishers who initially called for the award would be the ones who would de facto split the award and the winner’s marketing fee is the fairest way for those publishers to underwrite the cost and build the reputation of the award as a non-affiliated engine of recognition. It was a scheme devised in 1999 when the Industry was a very different world.
Those publishers had no way of knowing in 1999 that publishing would change so drastically within a decade.
Gee, actors don’t like getting their pictures taken with their Oscars and having everyone ask them how that feels? Who knew? I mean, all the half-dozen or so Nobel Prize winners of my acquaintance enjoyed that sort of thing to death. I would have considered the situation you bring up as part of the prize, not as a cost.
I have never been a big fan of contests as a writer. I know everyone rushes off to see the latest contest. To me I’d rather send something to a publisher than a committee that might hold the thing off the market in order to get a certificate or goody bag of some sort and then to pay for the privilege. I also noticed that there is award writing and publishable writing and they weren’t always the same. But, mostly, I saw most “awards” as some sort of scam. You get thousands of writers paying from $10 to $100 for a 1 in 10,000 shot at some prize usually worth less than what you paid to enter in hopes they could put “Winner of ____(which few if anyone every heard of) Contest”
Your chances of winning a contest are much lower than your chance of being published if you spent as much time and effort submitting your work to editors and publishers or promoting your self-pubbed material as you do prepping stuff for a contest. And the pay off is much greater.
If the work is already published, you might ask how much advertising you could buy or how many review copies you could send out for the price of the entrance fee.
There are, I’m sure, some good honorable contests out there with reasonable entrance fees and a high enough profile for it to actually matter to readers someone won that contest, but I’ve been in the writing game nearly 40 years and I can probably name those on one hand with fingers left over.
But then I also know my writing is not “the best” in any group of writers. However, that doesn’t mean it isn’t good enough to provide enjoyable diversion for a few hours to the right person. And when they tell me they enjoyed the book, that’s much better than a Christy award to me.
I see your point, word, but I disagree. And here’s why. You mention buying advertising or sending review copies. I see entering contests as performing a similar task. In the case of advertising, you’re putting an image or whatever out there where it can be easily ignored.
But with contests, you are putting your book into the hands of people who have already agreed to read it. Win or lose, you’ve gotten readers for your book. And they are usually dedicated readers who can tell others about it. (Possibly have blog or other literary connections.)
I enter almost every contest I hear about, if my books qualify and the fee is reasonable. Personally, I’ve had more success with smaller reader-oriented contests. (I don’t think thousands of books enter, BTW, but I could be wrong.)
I’ve also gotten a fair sample of reviews from contest judges on Amazon and elsewhere. And, unlike what Jeff said with the Christy, I have seen an uptick in sales when my books get mentioned for an award.
Let’s face it, if you’re a speculative writer, the Christy award is probably not going to get you alot, because the market it is aimed at (the Family Bookstore crowd) isn’t going to be interested in the book anyway. (Ooh…robots and dragons? Gross.) And even if they were, they probably wouldn’t know about it unless they happened to see the list somewhere.
The difference is that when I give a book to a book reviewer to read, I know I’m getting the same book review that anyone can get. It costs exactly zero to send out an eBook and under $5 to send out a print copy. Everyone can afford that.
But when you’re paying over $200 to enter (175 plus the pile of copies), plus you know you’ll have to pay another $1000 if you win, you’re intentionally pricing most of the people out of the market.
Yes, I wouldn’t consider the Christy Award fee structure “reasonable.” I was more arguing for the value of book awards in general. I find them valuable in their own right.
They are valuable when they’re fair.
As a judge or former judge of a variety of awards, I can honestly say that every award system has its share of glitches. Not sure it’s fair to single out the Christys.
A lot of strong opinions expressed in this discussion, and I see merit on both sides of the debate: marketing needs funding (contest fees), and there’s a panel of judges who decide the winners (seems legit), but the winner pays?
In contests I’ve had to help organize, sponsorship was gained outside the contest, with operational and prize money coming from elsewhere. Yes, entry fees were charged, but they were minimal ($5 – $25, generally), and went back into the operational costs.
There is merit implied by such contests, because they don’t hint of being purchased. Even if the contest is being run above-board and with integrity, if the victor pays, there’s an air of scam or buy-ability about it that taints even the most excellent winners.
Perhaps someone could forward this discussion to the folks in charge of the Christys so they might witness first-hand the issues inherent in the current structure of the contest.
In regards to the comments above about whether or not a Christy-winning book is good or bad: as a reader, when I see an award, my expectation is that out of *all* the published books in that category, it was deemed the best. *Not* the best of a handful of entries. And if a category doesn’t have many entries, then it’s not necessarily the best of the limited few that won, but could also be whichever one happened to suck the least. It could be an amazing book – but with a limited pool (which the average reader knows nothing about) the odds are skewed.
One of my first thoughts after reading this post and all the comments (other than disappointment in the way the Christy is more licensing than award) is that if Christian readers/writers want things to change then it’s within all of our power to collectively do something about it. Shift attention elsewhere and replace the Christy with something more meaningful. The Christy award won’t mean much if they don’t get entries or if buyers start disregarding the sticker.
I understand what you’re saying there, but I think it is unrealistic. In today’s market who wants to be in charge of making sure *all* the books that were published that year in a particular category have been gathered up, read, and judged? That’s just an unrealistic expectation with all the many ways books are published today.
That was one item I thought strange in reading Katherine’s original post, because she seems to have somehow expected that Robynn Tolbert’s book would’ve been on the shortlist for the Christy’s. (I haven’t read it, so I know nothing of the story here.) But that assumption presumes alot. First, that the book was qualified, given the year and manner it was published, and then that the publisher, or the author, entered the book in the award competition. And then, that it was finalist material given all the other entrants.
Oh, I agree that’s an unrealistic expectation. But I’d bet a lot of the general public approach book awards with the same perception. That every publisher, large and small, submits their crème de la crème and it’s from this pool that a winner is selected.
Why is it an “unrealistic expectation”? I’m not a naïf with little understanding of book awards. I’m a book geek and a book reviewer.
Tolbert’s book was so good I’d have paid the entry fee myself had I known. And no, we aren’t related.
Pardon the brevity and the typos. This was sent from my iPhone.
I’m thinking (and please take this as gently as I’m trying to say it) maybe you’re being a little sensitive to the comments & replies. Kerry thought that *my* expectation, not yours, was unrealistic. That rewards be based on *all* books published in that category every year. And there are so many – I can see it being an insane job trying to make sure every single book of note is considered with none slipping through the cracks. Not that it isn’t something that should be striven for. Maybe you have a similar expectation but I don’t think either of us were attacking or belittling you in that train of thought?
Oh, it’s entirely probable indeed. I read these as emails, not as threaded comments so it’s likely that I didn’t follow correct attributions, since they aren’t there in the emails.
Still and all, while it is improbable that EVERY book be considered, it is also a fact that the way the Christys work now a serious player (Splashdown Books–Robynn’s publisher) with quality work is priced out of the running, as are a multitude of others.
Yes, I agree with the lady. 🙂 Don’t take this the wrong way, Katherine, but i think you’ve been a little quick to attack at a number of points in this discussion. I know it is hard with forums like this, because you can’t hear inflections, or see facial expressions, but you sort of beat up on Mr. Gerke and Marcher Lord in a few places…but he was trying to be as informative, I think, as he could be. He worked for a few of those publishng firms before starting Marcher Lord.
Also, let’s remember that until recently the sort of technology that makes Splashdown and Marcher Lord possible was unavailable. They are both essentially micro-presses. Small staffed and printing books on demand. Doing this as much for the love of story as anything.
The founding members of the Christys are all old school. Large publishers, lots of staff. (Though probably getting leaner by the day.) Either one is really only a “serious player” by intent, not by longevity or number of books sold or size.
Not knocking quality here, BTW. I’ve read many, many books by both MLP and Splashdown. (Even before writing for one of them. 🙂 ) And I think the writing is overall stellar.
I just think we need to keep things in perspective. Yes, there is some craziness with the way the Christy awards operate. (Jeff agreed there, as well.) It would be nice if they changed. But I think everyone involved probably had good intentions at the time.
If I appear quick to attack it is because of comments like these that I perceive as very patronizing.
I KNOW HOW SMALL PRESSES WORK.
I TOO WORKED IN PUBLISHING.
Yet you and Mr. Gerke keep trying to explain things to me as if I were a naïf or a young child.
I find it incredibly frustrating.
Pardon the brevity and the typos. This was sent from my iPhone.
Wow. I’m sorry Katherine, but perhaps you should’ve explained all your credentials right up front so no one could in any way step on your VERY LARGE TOES.
I tend to not give my CV during the course of a conversation. I like to generally presume that when I speak of things like negotiating licensing agreements, following book awards, having worked for Tech startups and other business terminology that others in the conversation will at least respect me as a person with professional experience. Both you and Mr. Gerke have monkeys in the circus, I do not–apart from being a fan of Ms. Tolbert’s work.
I believe in your zeal to defend the Christys as valuable awards–which you must do, as you are heavily invested–you have been eager to mischaracterise me in order to discredit my concerns.
Pardon the brevity and the typos. This was sent from my iPhone.
I’m sorry again, Katherine. You’ve been sort of dropping your credentials and experience throughout this thread, but it seems you do it only AFTER someone has said something to step on your toes. And that’s very hard for me to deal with.
BTW, I feel no need to defend the Christys whatsoever, and neither does Jeff.
Believe it or not, the times MLP has entered, it has been due to author initiative, with Jeff being nearly dragged to it through an agreement of shared risk and potential shared gain. None of us like to drop that sort of coin, believe me. (Read over the posts again. We were mostly agreeing with you.)
I’ll admit, I’ve (somewhat grudingly, at times) entered books before, but I did so knowing that if I didn’t win and one of my fellow friends and authors did, I’d be sharing in their victory to an extent. And that was okay. It isn’t all about me. Never was. The MLP authors have a really nice camaraderie (more than I’m guessing, most publishing houses have.)
That’s why I said you didn’t have all the facts before you attacked. You didn’t. Nuff said.
As I said before I do not read a lot of Christian fiction. I DO read a lot overall, however, and can spot quality right away. I read Robynn Tolbert’s book and was blown away. I knew it qualified for the award because I knew when it was published because I had to make sure it qualified for the Clive Staples award. I nominated it for that.
I assumed that her publisher knew what a standout gem she had with that story and nominated it. Her publisher has since commented above that she cannot afford the costs–real and potential–of entering.
I don’t know what all was submitted for the idiotically-named “visionary” category. I do know that the two eligible books I read–or partially read–were not only NOT award quality they were mediocre at best.
That all adds to my feeling of being duped.
Also, it’s Christys. Not Christy’s.
Pardon the brevity and the typos. This was sent from my iPhone.
I am curious as to what might happen if, say, someone entered the Christys, was announced as a finalist, but due to changed circumstances at the publisher, the $1000 fee could not be paid. Would another finalist have to be picked? That might be a very interesting round of publicity. And it might be what’s needed to nudge the system to change. Not that I’d ever do it, mind you – my personal circumstances would have to improve markedly before I could ever consider entering in the first place (yes, my publishing costs come out of my own pocket, from my mostly part time day job). I aim to break even and better on every project at Splashdown and without doubt, a $1000 added cost would scuttle the chances of that – both for an individual book and for the business overall in any given year. We’ve heard that it doesn’t improve sales, so what’s the point? Many of our titles are too “out there” for CBD consideration, anyway 😛
There’s plenty more that I’m thinking, but it’s likely too tangential for here and now.
You actually don’t qualify for it:
“AN ELIGIBLE BOOK THAT IS ENTERED SHALL NOT QUALIFY FOR THE CHRISTY AWARD UNLESS THE PUBLISHER OF A WINNING NOVEL AGREES:
TO CONTRIBUTE $1,000 TOWARDS THE MARKETING OF THE CHRISTY AWARD WINNERS VIA A SPECIFIC CHRISTY AWARD MARKETING PLAN. FUNDS WILL BE ENTRUSTED TO THE CHRISTY AWARD LLC AND ARE DUE WITHIN THIRTY (30) DAYS AFTER THE CHRISTY AWARD HAS BEEN CONFERRED.
TO INCLUDE TRADE LINKS WITH THE CHRISTY AWARD WEB SITE.
TO PURCHASE AND/OR REPRODUCE THE CHRISTY AWARD MEDALLION TO BE AFFIXED ON THE COVERS OF WINNING BOOKS.”
This is from their 2013 guidelines doc.
At first I thought that you would still win, but you couldn’t use the medallion or market based on the Christy name. You lose out on the marketing power of the name, and no visual marketing, but you still have the satisfaction of being judged as quality by your peers. But I guess I was wrong. I’m a little shocked at this myself; I never paid much attention to the Christy except that it’s cool John Otte got nominated, and as something which shows what titles are considered quality in genres I mostly don’t read.
I’m not really sure what to think. Props to Katherine for noticing it.
In all fairness, I only noticed after it was pointed out to me.
Wow, sorry I missed out on this conversation. It may be irrelevant, but Jeff’s explanation of how the Christy awards originated was helpful to me. The 1K fee makes much more sense within that context. That’s often pocket change for larger corporation.
I’ve never put to much stock in the Christy awards, or awards in general. They are too subjective. And knowing that the intelligentsia responsible for picking the award winners on the secular side tends to be very liberal leaning, I can’t say I put much stock in those. They’ve made a mockery of the Nobel Prize, for instance. I realize that’s not a literary award, but I have a hunch it’s the same crop of “we’re so much smarter than you” folks doling out literary awards. Call me jaded (because I am).
There are literary Nobels given.
Heh, well I was specifically thinking of the one they gave to Al Gore and also the one to Obama, both of which pretty much proved to me that the awards are a worthless farce. (Not that I have an opinion.) Obviously I don’t pay much attention to them, categories included.
I’m not sure giving an award to somebody whom one disagrees with politically or even somebody one genuinely doesn’t think deserves it makes the entire award “a worthless farce.”
I find it pretty rare that there is any kind of subjective contest in which I agree with every single winner but to therefore right all subjective contests off as worthless seems a bit imprudent.
Al Gore is a nut job and what has Obama done for peace? If they want me to take their prestigious awards seriously then they need to award people who have actually *done* something. Personally, I’m saddened to see what a joke they’ve made of it in these two particular cases, because I would like to be able to take the awards seriously.
This thead is fraught with enough conflict as is. I’d prefer to not go down these roads of political agitprop that are at best ancillary to the topic of the Christys’ legitimacy.
Pardon the brevity and the typos. This was sent from my iPhone.
Actually, I think this mini-thread demonstrates just how subjective these types of awards are. Literary awards may not have the same obvious political underpinnings, however, every selection community brings their beliefs and likes/dislikes to the table. It’s a fact that our colleges, where the literary ‘elite’ reside and thrive, are liberal institutions which no doubt plays into their selections. And I have a B.S. in English by the way (heh, B.S. is ironically appropriate at times) so I have some limited experience in these matters.
Regardless, your blog, your rules. I won’t bring up any more nut jobs.
And this is where I officially stop causing trouble.
There are Nobel Prizes in medicine, many of the sciences, math, etc. Nobels. All the STEM people I know — and I know a lot of them — consider them the epitome of awards, the very top of the top. They are the very opposite of a mockery.
I’m late here – but just wanted to come back and say that I’m a bit concerned by any awards not nominated by readers…why should the publishers nominate their own books (regardless of whether they pay or not), because we know what they think. Let the readers decide what is good and nominate the books! So I’d be concerned even without the price. Granted, I realize a lot of book awards probably aren’t run that way but still – just seems to me to be the way that would make the most sense.
Ally, I want to address this because I talked about it in a blog post I did yesterday on literary contests in general. The problem with reader-nominated awards is that most readers don’t know of the many, many different awards out there–and it really shouldn’t be the readers’ responsibility to keep track and/or hunt them down with all their various nomination/entry periods and such. Plus, what it does is make the award committee have to contact every author that is nominated to ask for a copy or copies of their book, after sorting through all the nominations to eliminate duplicates.
And in my experience with reader-driven awards, it ends up being more of a popularity contest: Which author can rally the most fans to nominate them?
Readers get to play their *very, very, very valuable* part by reviewing books. The more reviews a book has, the more word of mouth, the more recognized a book becomes. What authors want more than anything is for their books to be beloved :).
I’ve been aware of this “agreement” part of the Christy for awhile. And it’s quite blatant. So, allow me to push the Grace Awards which has its finalists’ list out now and will soon be announcing winners. There is no entrance fee. In fact authors can’t enter. Readers have to nominate novels in the first round of the contest. Grace has guidelines for readers…but it’s a reader’s choice awards….kind of a populist awards in Christian fiction Judges have assured me readers have done a stellar job. Yet, a few judges, in all honesty, said they had trouble getting through a couple of the finaling novels in the first two years of the contest. The judges are reading now in year three and at this point deliberations are secret. But I can say the list of finalists look good. http://graceawardsdotorg.wordpress.com/2013/03/04/and-the-grace-awards-2012-finalists-are/