Nominations Open for the 2014 IU Excellence Awards

We are pleased to announce the nominations for the Indies Unlimited Excellence Awards are now open.

This is our way of providing recognition to those in the indie community who have given valuable assistance, resources, information, or other support to improve the quality and visibility of indie authors.

Once again, there are no entry fees and no prizes. The finalists and winners will receive handsome, hand-crafted digital plaques commemorating their victory. It is not merely the plaque, but the votes of confidence and thanks behind it that give the award its proper meaning.

Awards will be given in three categories: Continue reading “Nominations Open for the 2014 IU Excellence Awards”

Announcing the Indies Unlimited Excellence Awards for 2014

Indies Unlimited Excellence Awards We are pleased to announce the Indies Unlimited Readers’ Choice Excellence Awards. This is our way of providing recognition to those in the indie community who have given valuable assistance, resources, information, or other support to improve the quality and visibility of indie authors.

This is the second year of what we hope will become an annual tradition. Awards will be given in three categories:

Best Book Review Site
We feel book review sites are critical to book discovery. Having a lot of great reviews on your book’s page is nice, but book review sites introduce your book to their followers, giving you a better shot at finding new readers. These sites and reviewers deserve our thanks.

Best Writers’ Resource Site
From writing tips to marketing strategy, there are sites out there that help you get it done. Lots of oases dot the indie savannah. Where are your favorite watering holes? Which sites add value to your day and help make you a better writer?

Best Book Promotion Site
There are slews of sites out there today designed to sell books for authors. The sole focus of these sites is the direct marketing of books – no author interviews, features, or giveaways. Just connecting readers with books through targeted advertising. Which of these sites do you count on to sell books?

Obviously, as the sponsor of these awards, Indies Unlimited is excluded from the process. Oh well, it is more blessed to give than to receive. *sniff*

Nominations for each category will open on Sunday. Rules for nominations and voting will be posted at that time. Just so nobody gets too excited, there are no cars or money at stake here. The finalists and winners will receive handsome, hand-crafted digital plaques commemorating their victory. It is not merely the plaque, but the votes of confidence and thanks behind it that give the award its proper meaning. We hope you are as excited about the awards as we are, and we look forward to your enthusiastic participation.

2013 IUEA Winners

STARVoting for the Indies Unlimited Excellence Awards has concluded. We’d like to thank everyone for vigorous participation. The votes constitute an important part of the process, but do not exclusively determine the winner. To balance the votes and prevent the awards from becoming an outright “popularity contest,” we used the Alexa rankings of the finalists in the final calculation. Alexa is is the leading web traffic ranking service, and we regard it as an impartial standard.

The total votes received by each finalist by the close of the polls was divided by each candidate’s Alexa ranking. The rankings used were those recorded for each site on the morning of February 6, 2014.

This methodology was chosen for several reasons. First, while it gives significant weight to the Alexa ranking, it does not allow a site (even with an excellent rating) to win without getting votes. Second, of the various methodologies we tested on dummy data, this was  the only one that did not produce ties. It also removes any potential elements of favoritism.

Both the winners and the finalists exemplify the very spirit of the indie community. We are pleased to present the recipients of the 2013 Indies Unlimited Excellence Awards.

IU Excellence Award Nominations Still Open

IUEA Nominations ButtonNominations are still open for the Indies Unlimited Excellence Awards. It’s up to you to decide which sites will be included in the voting! It’s time to recognize the sites that have provided you with the most valuable information, insights, and resources. Nominations are easy, just click on the image at left, or in the top of the sidebar, and follow the instructions.

You can nominate your choices for Best Book Review Site, Best Resource Site, and Best Watchdog/Warning Site. Get those nominations in and show that you care!