BooktubeSFF Awards discussion

Hey everyone! Thank you all for joining us for this season of the #BooktubeSFF Awards. Now that the 2017 Awards have been handed out, we are looking to the future and how the awards will continue to evolve. Each year we learn from the experience ourselves, as well as take community feedback into consideration. So please let us know: what did you love and what things would you like to see changed (with suggestions for how!) about the awards.

One of the big discussions this year was the lack of variety in the list, with a few categories having repeat authors. As discussed in this year's live show, we will be eliminating double authors in future years. So while authors could potentially have selections in multiple categories, they cannot have two books nominated to the shortlist in the same category.

In addition to that, a lot of you gave us feedback about the lack of "uniqueness" to the list. As we've mentioned, this shortlist is what YOU all make it, as it is a popular vote. But we do agree that we'd like to see some other under-represented titles in the spotlight. We have juggled around the idea of having a Judge's Choice in each category, with judges all entering a potential nominee and the community voting on the one they'd like to make the list for Judge's Choice. Thoughts and suggestions regarding that idea? Any other ways you can think of to add some variety to our popular-voted shortlist?

Also, there's been discussions of putting a cap on how late in a series a book can be nominated. For example, a book in a series later than the 4th book cannot be nominated. This gives both judges and voters a chance to read more nominees, as they aren't having to read 12 books before reading the nominated book. It also gives other books a chance, instead of seeing only the latest book in the most popular series.

We've also discussed more interactive things about the awards happening during off season. Suggestions?

Lastly, are there any new categories you'd like to see? Anything you feel is being left out? We've seen discussions about Best Novel being broken into Best Science Fiction and Best Fantasy, Best Cover Art, Classic SFF, etc. Let us know!

Please discuss! We'd love to hear from you.

I'd like to see a judge's wildcard as a 4th choices in each category that is only picked by the judges without any popular vote. I'd think this would definitely widen the diversity but without favoring the book too much since there would be 7 of you picking and you all have diverse taste.
I think it's smart to cap out with the 4th book in a series unless you make a series category. Unfortunately then you'd have to make sure that the series you picked were popular among the judges which would be difficult. So for practical reasons, I definitely agree with the cap.

Some interesting new categories could be: "Best debate author/book" (this would help from all the awards going to authors with large already established fan bases) and also "Best LGBTQIA+ SFF" would be an awesome category too since we're getting more diverse reads in SFF.
Today was awesome! I can't wait to read some of the books/GN you guys discussed today. Wonderful job!! Already looking forward to next year!

My thoughts:

- Yes to limiting the number of times an author can appear in a single category. This will help to increase variety of the nominations.

- Yes to limiting sequels in a series. I would actually like to go further and recommend limiting nominations to only the first books in a series. I think it'll be pretty boring if Saga, Descender & Montress are all nominated again for their next volumes (and I say this even though I enjoyed all three graphic novel series). If the intention of the awards is to help readers expand their horizons and read more SFF on booktube, than I would like to see a system that encourages new series and more debut novels to nominated.

- Yes to more content outside of the regular award seasons. Perhaps there could be readalongs in the later half of 2017 to help booktube to read more new releases to prepare for the next round of awards?

- I'm also potentially interested in including a "judge's choice" nomination to add more variety to the nomination categories I currently don't know exactly how this should work, but I like the idea in general.

- I really liked the Nomination Suggestion videos that went up this year, but perhaps those could be posted earlier to give more people time to read those suggestions?

- Also, I am interested in splitting up Science Fiction & Fantasy Adult, since Science Fiction doesn't get as much love on booktube and always seems to lose out. I'm not a huge fan of Best Cover Art, because it feels like more superficial category (but that's just my opinion.).

I think that's all for now. Thanks to the wonderful hosts/organizers for all your hard work. I'm currently watching the live show, which is super entertaining!

I think limiting options to series books is a great idea as well, although as someone else mentioned I'd be really happy if it was only standalones or first in a series. I think it's a little boring if it's the same series/authors who get nominated each year.
I think breaking the Best Novel catogory into SF and Fantasy is a great idea. I found it a little sad that not a lot of SF was nominated this year, and I am really curious to discover more books from that genre.
A judge wildcard sounds like a fun idea as well.

Rachel - The idea about a readalong later this year to read different 2017 releases would help me a lot for sure. My biggest problem when adding potential nominees this year, was my lack of reading new releases.

I concur on the limiting of series nominees. I think it should cap at the second volume. You could still nominate a second book in a series, but not anymore after that.
I think trying to catch up to more than two volumes of a series, in multiple categories hampers the enthusiasm for voting.

I think a separate category for best series could potentially be an interesting addition, depending on how it's implemented.

Yes to all of the suggestions in Sam's post.

I've been trying to read more 2017 releases this year to make next year's nominations easier, but it would still be very helpful to have a constant reminder in some form. It shouldn't be too much work to have some sort of discussion going on here throughout the year. Yes, I get a lot of great suggestions from watching everyone's videos, but it would be a nice reminder to see this group active all year round. Could we have for example a 'Recently read 2017' folder with topics for each category? I think this would be very beneficial for the short fiction category.

I kind of like the idea of the judges having to agree on the fourth nominee. All it takes is one judge nominating a super popular work and that one would win the popular vote automatically. Unless there'd be some kind of criteria for 'uniqueness' or 'underratedness'. In that case it might work for each judge to nominate one and then choose the fourth nominee by popular vote. This would add a round of voting though, and I'm not sure if that's necessary. I'm fine with either way, but I'd prefer the judges choosing the fourth nominee without a popular vote.

I think it goes without saying, but the series cap should also apply to books that are first in a series, but assume you've read another series first or will spoil another series. And especially in the short fiction category, I think the works should be able to stand alone. I really wouldn't mind all the nominees being standalones tbh.

I'm all for separating adult fantasy and scifi, I would love that. But not too many categories please, because I think some people already have trouble reading all the nominees with the current categories.

How would the Classic SFF category work?

Shane wrote: ""Best LGBTQIA+ SFF" would be an awesome category"
April-Jane Rowan wrote: "Would also really love an LGBTQIA+ in SFF category"

Yes that would be amazing, but then I'd also like to have other types of diversity. So if this is added, it should be an Ownvoices SFF or Diverse SFF category instead of just LGBTQIA+.

edit: Also, the babbles are/were really nice for finding diverse books, so I hope those continue next year!

I guess this is as good a place as any. Could one of the mods please remove the 2016 reading challenge from the group page? It's been bothering me for months!

thought this years live Booktube SFF awards event went a lot better from a viewing perspective than last year - audio was better and a little less chaotic and ordered - thank you all so much for your work.

A couple thoughts of feedback - there was a vast gulf of enthusiasm and time spent between Middle Grade discussion and the Novel discussion (go Ninefox!) it was hard to miss. MG had no champions really for any of the books and the panelists just seemed to want to move on as quick as possible - this was also reflected in the high number of NO VOTE cast in this category - my suggestion would be either lose the category or bring in Booktubers from that world who can champion the category and bring in more of an audience that nominates and votes and cares about those books.

I like the panelists/judge's wildcard pick for each category to increase variety of authors. I might also suggest a category for new authors - that would increase variety as well - Sanderson and Schwab would not have been in there.

In addition to limiting each category to one author (a great idea) you could either eliminate books being nominated that are in the middle of a series to increase readership (many found taking on huge swaths of Sanderson too daunting) or have a separate series category...

I also like a new 'classics' category idea but perhaps a curated one by the judges - because with only a few hundred voters you risk the winner only having 5 votes in such a wide open range, or Lord of the Rings wins every year, etc.

Thanks again!

I like a lot of the suggestions I've seen, especially splitting science fiction and fantasy, and adding categories for diversity. So long as it doesn't create too much of a burden for the judges. I don't know how I feel about capping sequels. It makes sense from a practical standpoint, but it also seems like there should be some acknowledgement if a book really is one of the best out there.

Moderators: great job this year, and thank you for opening up this discussion so we can offer ideas for next year!

I support the suggestion to limit the number of times an author can be nominated in a single category.

I think a cap on books in series is a smart idea. In the "Best Adult," "Best YA," etc. you could cap it at the second book in a series , but there should be a category for "Best Book In A Series."

I also support creating both a "Best SF" and "Best F" in the adult category and creating a "SFF Diversity" category.

I would love the Judges to add a fourth pick to each category. It would also be interesting/helpful if the nominations opened earlier and stayed open longer, and the Judges could create a list of suggestions to go along with each category. This would allow us to read some other options prior to making nominations.

Finally, I personally don't think a Classic SFF category is necessary, since this is an awards system for new releases, but I'm open to new ideas.

Some great suggestions already.

I'm all for having separate categories for science fiction, fantasy, YA, MG. Fantasy titles seem to dominate the nominations.

For short stories I'd suggest the nominations should be for a specific short story/novella/novelette and not collections/anthologies.

Great suggestions! I second a lot of them:
- elimintating authors from multiple nominations in different categories
- a cap out for works in a series
- definitely splitting novel length (and maybe short?) into SciFi and Fantasy categories
- a judges' fourth
- and especially adding a kind of debut category for new authors (maybe defining debut as first work in a certain category, so for example an author who already published short work can enter in the novel category as debut, if it's their first novel length etc)

Middle Grade was a category I could have done without. Maybe it could be interesting to open that up into a younger audience category? That would open it to children's books etc. There's not a whole lot of releases, but some very pretty things.

Other than that: I'm already looking forward to the next award season and would love some activities during off season, possibly to curate a more diverse list.

What if the judges actually came up first with a longlist ? It could be an extended list of judges, not just the 9 that end up voting. It could include people who just really read a lot of new releases (booktube and non booktube people, just pre-selected to have a wide range of style and tastes)
Then it would be entirely open to everyone to vote for a shortlist among the books of that pre-selected longlist, and then everything would be back to the usual. I would personnaly prefer this to a judge's choice category, but what do you guys think ?

I do agree though that only one book of an author could be picked in the nominees for each categories.

Would love to split the novel category into fantasy and sci fi.
And, I would like a serie category. Mostly because I really want to vote for Assassin's fate next year aha, but also because it could mean only first book in a serie in the novel categories making it easier to actually read the book in time AND let other author win or else the Stone sky will win again next year aha (which is cool, but diversity of books is good too).

And yes, if there's not already too many categories, a best LGBTQIA+ SFF would be quite cool ^^

I like the idea of a debut category, but I think that we can't have all of the new things. So far in my opinion Judges' Choice, Diverse category and Debut category are all trying to do the same thing, which is to bring some variety to the shortlist. While I would happily see all of these and more, it's too much. Of these, Judges' Choice would be the easiest to implement and wouldn't add a whole new category just so we'll have some diversity. Wouldn't it be optimal to see diversity in the categories we already have, instead of having all the popular books in the old categories and the diverse books in their own category? So based on this, out of these three options I support Judges' Choice the most.

Anna - I agree that adding diversity to the existing list would be most helpful - Judges Choice can help with that without adding new categories - it would be important to have 'diversity and variety' as the remit to the judges in their selection...you could also have a BooktubeSFF awards babble video from each judge after the formal nominations where they each select 4 books (or whatever #) they thought should have made the categories and why - not eligible for awards but still expands the reading list a lot.

The other question to ask here is - we are all booktubers - hosts or viewers or both - how does this group expand the youtube portion of these awards - bigger audience/more participation - more videos - maybe some author interviews -

BTW - have the authors been informed that they have won or were nominated?

This was my first year watching, and I am just diving into the SFF genre(s), but I'll offer a little bit of feedback.

I would like to see Best Protagonist and in the case of a tie (like the three way tie,) maybe the voters rate the books 1 - 3 (or whatever,) and add that up for the category winner.

I loved watching your awards and discussions. It was nice seeing book lovers together and sharing thoughts in a civil manner.

Anna wrote: "I like the idea of a debut category, but I think that we can't have all of the new things. So far in my opinion Judges' Choice, Diverse category and Debut category are all trying to do the same thi..."

I completely agree with Anna. I think the Judges Choice is the best option for the improving the diversity/variety of the nominations. I'm fine with the judges voting among themselves & just added an extra book to the shortlist for each category. I trust our judge panels to choose under-hyped, well written novels with diverse representation.

In Regards to Adding Other Categories, here are my additional thoughts:

1) There are already a lot of nominations to potentially read, especially if we continue to include sequels. I think that adding to the number of categories will only make the reading list more daunting.

2) My concern with including a separate "Diverse" category is that it might actually make the nominations in the other categories LESS diverse. For instance, if I loved 4 new releases, and two have elements of diversity, I'm more likely to nominate them for that category and then nominate non-diverse books for the Best Novel category. As Anna said, having diversity in all our lists is more optimal.

3) Personally, I'm not too interested in a classic categories as I prefer the awards to focus on the best new releases. I feel that including backlist reading will prevent more readers from getting to read all the new release nominations in time for the vote.

4) As many other readers, I'm not particularly interested in Middle Grade and could skip the category next year. If other readers enjoy it, I'm fine to keep the category, but I personally wouldn't read the nominations. I felt like the judges were also less interested in the category, but that could have had more to do with the specific nominations than the age level.

5) While I'm cautious about expanding the categories, I'd still really love to see Fantasy & Science Fiction Novels split into two categories. I think it's really difficult to compare the two genres against each other and there is certainly enough new releases to fill the nominations for each ballot. I realize it would mean more potential reading, but I think it's worth it because so many readers (like myself) mostly only read one of the two genres and will be biased to novels that fall into their favourite genre.

Alice wrote: "What if the judges actually came up first with a longlist ? It could be an extended list of judges, not just the 9 that end up voting. It could include people who just really read a lot of new rele..."

That I find brilliant. :-) Why not let the experts compile the long list?

Maybe then non-judges could (maybe in a kind of pitch thread here) also bring the judges' attention to certain titles that they think must be read. If a judges is convinced and adds the title - great. (As long as the "audience" for the awards is limited as it is that should be managable.)

I'm not really convinced about having a separate "Diverse" category, because that would mean that the nominees in the "regular" Best Novel category would all be not diverse? And that kind of sucks. This year's Best Novel nominees weren't too bad in terms of diversity.

The Diverse category has been ruled out by the judges as well, for the same reasons others are noting. We don't want to separate the list into diverse and not diverse, and would like all of the categories to have diverse options.

Judges Choice is something that looks like it will be implemented in some way. We are still looking at all ideas for that, so your continued suggestions on how best to implement that would be appreciated :)

Would it be possible to put up a folder for recommending short fiction where people can link short stories/novellas they have enjoyed? I am thinking that would help give people a place to go for short fiction ideas. It could function like the Debut thread. Just for recommendations, not for opinions on those recommendations.

I think it would be cool to have Best Fantasy Novel and Best Science Fiction Novel categories. Maybe keep the rest of the categories as both SFandF, but for novel it would be cool to have one for each. Although, splitting that the 2 cats and adding Debut means adding 6 more books. So... that's a consideration.

As for series, I think limiting how far in a series feels like a good idea. But I can see that there is also a desire to be able to reflect later-in-series books as well. Maybe there could be a write-in field on final ballot for folks to write their fave sequel? I'm not sure if that would be a logistically nightmare, but it might be a fun list to see and a way for people to see their fave sequel get some love.

I have a question about the short fiction category. I've been getting into short stories lately and have been picking up anthlogies and short story collections. For the most part I feel like it doesn't make sense to nominate these works as a whole "novel". I feel that we should be able to nominate individual stories. This would help diversify the short fiction catagory.

Maybe making a long list would also help. The long list could be voted down to a short list by popular vote.

You could also have an underhyped vote in. Where books or prices with under a certain amount of goodreads ratings or have it be a book that no more than a certain number of judges have heard about. You could put a list of nominated books that wouldn't normally make the list due to a lot of people not hearing about them or reading them. This would also expose the booktube SFF community to more books or pieces a fiction to add to our ever growing TBR list.

I'm curious what underhyped would look like. Ninefox Gambit seemed to have a lot of buzz in some circles, but still only has 4,000 ratings here on Goodreads (compared to 33,000 for A Gathering of Shadows).

I like the idea of breaking up Best Novel category into 2 categories: Sci-Fi and Fantasy. I personally don't read much sci-fi and when I do even what some would consider great novels, I find so so. I also would go as far as adding an Urban Fantasy category as well. These are 3 very different types of novels all lumped into one category and depending on reader preference will either be elevated or dumped not necessarily on quality. Oh yeah I also would have no problem dumping MG if the others were on board.

Will we get to see the long list for this year?

As someone interested in breaking the adult categories into fantasy and science fiction, I'd be interested to see how this last year could have potentially broken out.