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Message: <blockquote data-quote="PatrickLawinger" data-source="post: 1735372" data-attributes="member: 2735">CL,If you don't think that a few extra dollars for shipping isn't going to keep some people out of the awards, you have another thing coming. It has already been pointed out that not only does this add expense in terms of $, it also adds expense in terms of time and effort.The awards and publishers you list as an example are not valid on several levels.First, scale. The publishers AND awards are much larger. Entering the Ennies is not a marketing tool for game publishers (at least not those I know of). Necromancer Games, for example, uses them as is a means to achieve some recognition for authors, artists, and cartographers working in a low-paying field of work. Science fiction and fantasy novels are very different, the contests you name have the potential to have profound market influence, the Ennies have virtually no market influence at all. How many times to you see the Hugo award used to advertise a book? Now how many times have you seen the Ennies used in a full color print advertisement? On a cardboard book stand in your bookstore? Posted over a row of books in your airport?Second, the award itself. I just mentioned the fact that the Ennies have virtually no market influence. Other publishers have said this, and people are saying, “oh, but I see it all over websites.” Distributors don’t care if you won an Ennie in the past, and the book you won an Ennie for has most likely already sold 90% of what it is going to sell. If you are a .pdf publisher on ENWorld you might see additional sales. Print publishers aren’t going to see a sales increase significant enough to cover the costs of shipping books to you. Despite the fact that the majority of active gamers has internet access, only a minor percentage of them use the internet for anything game-related.Before you can start swinging your weight around and telling publishers they have to spend the time, effort and money to ship directly to the judges, you need to have some weight to swing. Sure, on ENWorld everyone knows about the Ennies, but ENWorld is the merest fraction of the total number of gamers few others know about the awards, or even the website. Right now I see several things being discussed that are simply going to lead publishers to completely blow off entering the Ennies at all. This is the exact opposite of what you want to have happen.</blockquote>

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