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Message: <blockquote data-quote="PatrickLawinger" data-source="post: 1724621" data-attributes="member: 2735">Ennie StuffOkay, I'll admit it, the thread is 5 pages long and I have only scanned it. The site is slow for me, I am lazy, and frankly don't have much time. I have seen few publisher responses and I'd like to put forward another.Funding: Okay, funding can't come from the companies/people submitting products. Sorry, it just can't. Even if you make it "voluntary" people won't feel that it is voluntary and any large donor that wins is going to spark discussion of corruption. Even if such charges are completely false, the taint on an award is something that should be avoided at all costs. To have a truly respected award the even the APPEARANCE of impropriety must be avoided. If you want to ask for fan donations, fine. If you are going to be the GenCon awards, then by all means make Peter pay for all of it.Author/Artist/Cartographer Awards: you are asking for an entry fee. You are also asking them to submit pieces of work that may or may not be fully purchased by the publisher. Don’t do it. A well-written book has numerous steps involved, including editing. The “final draft” turned into a publisher by the author is generally owned by the publisher in this industry. Even if a writer wanted to submit, and pay the fee, legally most can not.Award Categories: eh, whatever you want. Making the categories broader but doing this through a d20/DnD/OGL based website is simply going to marginalize the awards. Many d20 publishers won’t bother due to the breadth of the competition, and other publishers with other game systems won’t bother because they view this as a DnD site/award. Do one thing, do it well.Shipping to Judges: I don’t know what others are going to say, but I am saying, um, no. Shipping costs can be very high, I admit that, and boxing individual sets of books, etc. takes time. It takes time from the publisher too. Most of the publishers submitting are going to be small, asking a small print publisher to ship 5-6 individual shipments instead of 1 per product is asking for a significant increase in the amount they need to spend to take part in the contest. Overseas and Canadian publishers might even choose to not to enter. If you want as many publishers as possible entered, make it as easy as possible for them to submit their products, don’t add additional steps.The award itself: I am about to say things here that are sure to get me flamed. So be it. Some of the EnWorld members I saw at GenCon admitted to being surprised at just how huge the convention was, and how few people had even heard of EnWorld. I know people hate to hear it on these message boards, but in the overall rpg market, ENWorld is hardly a speck on the windshield. While a .pdf publisher with a following here might receive extra sales from a nomination or an award, print publishers hardly see a blip in sales. While most gamers use the internet, especially in this day and age, only a small percentage of those use it for gaming related questions, reviews, discussions, or even purchases. Avoid marginalizing the award by keeping it focused on DnD and related products, the further you expand the more you will be ignored, either because you are a DnD site voting on things you "don't know" or as an award that is simply overly broad.Improving the Awards: the biggest improvement I see as being required is getting more publishers to take part, particularly WotC. Remember, big companies essentially have nothing to gain by winning a nomination or an award, but can certainly lose face if they miss out. Sure, nobody wants to compete with the “big dog” but if the “big dog” isn’t there what does the award really mean? Maximize the number of companies entered in whatever way you can. If the big guys don't participate, the awards mean very little. I think you should also work on timing, find out when the big parties are and make sure the awards don’t conflict with them. The White Wolf party was the same night and time as the Ennies award ceremony.Respectfully,Patrick Lawinger</blockquote>

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