Judging will begin on January 20th, 2025.

I am announcing this in advance so you can prepare accordingly. Remember you can still edit while in this contest, though if I am judging your category, I ask you please do not change your title, username, blurb, or cover, and I also ask you refrain from editing since if I review your book and you edit it afterward, my review may not align with the new version of the text. This only applies to the current categories I am judging. If I am not judging your category yet, edit to your heart's desire.

It will start with Best Short Film, judged by Ravendipity, and the Reader's Choice, which is fan-voted. We are selecting two other categories to judge at this time. Some categories will be judged by one person, others may be split in half. We will let you know who is judging what. If a category is split in half, your judge will be listed in the introduction chapters.

However, regardless of who judges your piece, please remain followed to both hosts. Even if one is not judging your work (which is unlikely; most people submitted more than once, so you will likely be judged by both of us anyway), we are still doing a lot of work for your book and with general hosting of this contest. I.e., Raven does all the intros and comments, Honey does all the graphics and shoutouts, etc.

Also, I (Raven) want to ask you guys something, if you have a second. I'm always trying to improve my awards, and I think the WHO Awards and the Oscars are my best yet with the most polish, and it's because of all the critiques you guys gave me in the past.

I've started applying more graphics, making it more themed to make them stand out more, and I've shortened the categories to make it easier to judge, therefore getting results out faster, and all of that was possible thanks to your suggestions over the past year and a half. 

But that doesn't mean my awards still don't have refinement to go through, so that's why I have a new idea to potentially help my awards further.

Anyone who is familiar with me knows I always, and I mean always, get results out, even if it takes me a bit. I powered tf through "Best Fanfic" for the FN Awards, working on it almost every day for months, and the word count was literally a novel. It was like 68k, I think? I don't recall off the top of my head.

None of this is being said for pity points or anything, by the way. I signed up for reviewing knowing my reviews are long, so I'm not saying it to be like "woe is me." I enjoy doing reviews. I learn a lot through reviewing. A good writer reads, right? So I actually really enjoy doing these long reviews, even if they can take time.

All of this is being said because reviews for this may take a bit, so that leads me to my idea: would you guys want to see biweekly progress updates posted in these awards? I say biweekly because I don't want to spam anyone's notifs with updates on categories you may not even be in, so I was thinking a biweekly progress report to say where we're at with the categories and be honest about how much we've judged and what categories we're eyeing next. If we didn't review a single book in those two weeks, we'll be honest about it, or vice versa if we reviewed like 20 books.

Do you think this would be a good idea? Or do you not want to be bugged about it every two weeks? I know those notifs can be annoying, that's why I wanted to ask before doing anything.

I'm curious to hear your thoughts! Thanks for reading!