The voting for the Author Blog Awards, held by CompletelyNovel.com and which closed on the same night as the first UK Election Leaders Debate, has had an outcome which has proved to be just as surprising. The winner in the Published Author category is newcomer Emily Benet, whose recently published book Shop Girl Diaries grew from the blog she started two years ago.
She is joined at the winner’s table by popular author and blogger Neil Gaiman, who’s massive online following was nevertheless challenged right to the end by author Richard Jay Parker. Sam Starbuck claimed victory in the unpublished authors category.
The Author Blog Awards highlight the power of social media to offer a more level playing field for authors who are willing to interact with their audience online, and gain exposure for their work in the process. The winners and runners up were announced at the last night’s official London Book Fair Tweetup (20 April 2010), where the publishing Twitterati were out in force.
The nominations opened on 8 April. Over 500 blogs and microblogs were nominated over four weeks. The blogs which received the most votes were put on a shortlist and book-lovers had ten days to peruse the list and vote for their favourite. A flurry activity in the Twittersphere, blogs and Facebook pulled in thousands of people to check out a diverse selection of twenty-eight authors and their web feeds.
The winners were selected in three categories: published author blog, author microblog and unpublished author blog.
Best Published Author Blog: Emily Benet (emilybenet.blogspot.com)
Emily’s book ‘Shop Girl Diaries’ was published in 2009. The book began in June 2008 as a weekly blog about working in her mother’s chandelier shop. She was spotted a few months later by Chloe Thomas, a freelance TV director to write a screenplay for a TV pilot, and in 2009 Salt Publishing suggested that she turn the blog into a book. Emily, a fluent Spanish speaker, is currently working on a new novel set in London and Cartagena (Colombia).
Runners up: Cleolinda Jones (cleolinda.livejournal.com) and Jackie Morris (drawingalineintime.blogspot.com)
Best Author Microblog: Neil Gaiman (twitter.com/neilhimself)
Neil is a social media veteran.
He began writing his blog in 2001 to give readers an insight into the process of writing, revising and publishing his novel American Gods. He interacts with his fans constantly, keeping them updated on tours, new releases and answering their questions.
Our winner in the microblog category, he currently has around one and a half million followers on twitter and 120,000 fans on Facebook.
Runner-up: Richard Jay Parker (twitter.com/bookwalter)
Best Unpublished Author Blog: Sam Starbuck (copperbadge.livejournal.com)
Sam is a very active member of the livejournal community of bloggers. A Chicago-based writer, he has self-published his novel ‘Nameless’ and has just finished another novel ‘Charitable Getting’ which he has been posting in chapters on a part of his blog called ‘The Original Sam’. Sam also has a large following for the fan fiction that he posts on the ‘Sam the Storyteller’ section of his blog.
Runner-up: Jane Alexander (exmoorjane.blogspot.com)
It’s not just the authors who have been the winners in this competition. Hundreds of books have been sent out by The Random House Group, Simon & Schuster UK, Quartet Books, Penguin, Bloomsbury, Allison & Busby, Faber & Faber, Mills & Boon and Headline to the people who nominated and voted for blogs.
There is more information about the winners and shortlisted authors on www.completelynovel.com/author-blog-awards
All shortlisted blogs and a number of the most popular nominated blogs will be put into the CompletelyNovel Blog Directory which can be found at www.completelynovel.com/author-extras/blog-directory shortly.
my cats reckon that they would have won if their site had been shortlisted. I think they are just jealous gingers!
Good to see the word getting around. Hoping that my publishers will start taking me seriously. Now, I have colouring in to do and a panda to find.
Thanks so much for being involved! We were very impressed with the bloggers who made the shortlist…especially since authors normally have enough on their plate with writing their books! Send our regards to your cats, Jackie and looking forward to the novel, Jane!
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