2019 Dragon Nominations are in, and I'm feeling a little bit sick.

Happy 08/08 to all of my internet friends and neighbors, and for those minuscule numbers of family members who read this, isn't spell-check a great idea?

Last year, I made an honest attempt to review works that had been nominated to receive a Dragon Award. It was a GREAT experience! One unexpected benefit was that it put me in touch with several writers I'd never reviewed, and universally they were polite, accommodating,  and appreciative of my work.

I refer to the authors who responded to my attempts to contact, of course. I am unable to provide a character reference for those who ignored me. I'm sure they had their reasons.

I DID get to read a LOT of great books. Between August 9 and August 31, I read 6,913 words PAGES (thanks, Paul Mauser, for the catch!) for the assignment, and wrote 21 blog posts, in addition to the reviews I posted on Amazon and Goodreads. In addition to that, I had to set up correspondence with the necessary sources to get books that aren't available through the Kindle Unlimited program, or one of the three publishers who have agreed to supply me with a review copy (which is the industry standard). It was a labor of love, but it left me close to bookworm exhaustion, which I would have found unbelievable, if not, erm, inconceivable.

And so, this morning, I set about making my preparations for reviewing the nominations for this year. I limit my reviews to four categories, each one with six nominations. I was pleased to discover that I had already read and reviewed three of the nominated works, an improvement over last year, when I had prior experience with only two.

It was when I discovered I could only count on access to eight of the nominated works that I began to get uncomfortable. Last year, I started with access to 15 books, either from a cooperative publisher or through the Kindle Unlimited program. That's a HUGE difference in access, and I really don't have a lot of time to work with. I took a closer look at the books from this year, and those from last year, to see if I could identify the reason for the huge disparity.

And that's when I started feeling a little sick.

A close examination shows that ALL of the books I had access to came from ONE of the congenial publishers (Baen Books), or from a small publisher, or from an indie author. The books I could NOT get (and never got an answer to my request, either) were ALL published by one of the big, traditional publishing houses. All of them. And this year, of the 24 nominated works, there are 14 books published by the big traditional houses, and only 1 each by small houses or indie authors.

First, let's consider this: is it reasonable for publishers to make available review copies of their books? And the answer is YES, resoundingly YES. This is now, and has been for decades, the industry standard way of doing business. Amazon, which is absolutely DEATH on product reviewers receiving any consideration whatsoever in exchange for their reviews, SPECIFICALLY excludes book reviews from their policy. It's right there in black and white, in the section on "Promotions and Solicitations" :

Book authors and publishers may continue to provide free or discounted copies of their books to readers, as long as the author or publisher does not require a review in exchange or attempt to influence the review. (here's the link)

 Second: is it reasonable for them to provide copies to ME? That's a judgement call, I think, since I'm not reviewing for a newspaper or something else with astounding exposure. I am, however, providing a service; I'm a rated Amazon reviewer; excerpts from my reviews have popped up in blurbs; and, as I mentioned, three publishers have agreed to provide me with review copies.

But, ya know, it's not really the possibility of not getting access that's making me feel sick. It's the possibility that the Dragon Awards are being diddled. By space invaders.

Space invaders of this type.

Except worse.

Now, before you dump me into the tinfoil-hat category, hear this out: a quick bit of google-fu this morning found a couple of different posts praising the nominations for being "more mainstream."  I am NOT the person you want to ask if you are looking for a definition of "mainstream," because I don't know what that means.

It IS true that there were some clues about what appealed to the authors of the posts I read; one of them made a point of documenting the distribution of gender, skin color, and maybe some other characteristics in summary statements for each category, so, maybe "mainstream" means "values the importance of author traits."

Another group cited as promoting "mainstream" has this to say about their organization as a whole:

"we aim to be a big tent: members of our group include anarchists, socialists of various varieties, and some liberal Democrats. "

I don't want to mislead you into thinking that the other folks in the tent are more centrist than the people they list as fellow tent-dwellers. Here is their mission statement:

 “we promote leftist, LGBTQ+ and feminist cultural works in SF/fantasy and horror.”

So, I guess that's what "mainstream" means to them. I still don't have a clue.

So, why does that make me feel a little sick? It's NOT anarchists, feminists, and LGBTQ+ that bothers me; it's big, OLD business. Over half of the nominees come from perhaps as many as FOUR large, traditional publishing houses; it may be less, as I don't know if one of the giants owns another one, because imprints, etc. But, let's say FOUR. These four have been the big dog in the room for DECADES, and they have had a TIGHT control over what gets published. One of the greatest things that happened when Amazon established itself on the scene was that indie publishing became possible. Yes, there is a good bit of dreck out there, but there is some GREAT stuff that gets published as well, and there has been for years. However, it wasn't until 2015 that an indie author received a nomination for a major award (and I'm not mentioning the name, because the work was withdrawn).

My point is this: the big, OLD publishers have a lock on the recognition awards that existed prior to the past few years. Maybe that's reasonable; they WERE there all along, after all. But it seems to me as if what they have on their plate isn't enough for some people. They not only want what THEY have; they want what the Dragon has as well.

Yeah. That possibility makes me just a little bit sick.

Peace be on your household. (That's a hope and a blessing, and not a statement of fact)