Podiobooker
News from the Staff of Podiobooks.com

I’m peripherally aware of the Podcast Peer awards. I say peripherally because I’ve never actually heard any of the podcasts I listen to speak of this award in anything more than a passing mention. I’ve never been contacted by anyone administering the award or by any of the hundreds of voting members; hence peripherally.

Yesterday, J.C. Hutchins’ novel 7th Son was awarded the Best Podioboook prize, with Christiana Ellis’ Nina Kimberly The Merciless and The Rookie and Infection, both by Scott Sigler, taking the other finalist spots. Perhaps or perhaps not in that order. Kinda hard to tell. So first, congrats to J.C., Christiana, Scott and anyone else who won or was a finalist in this round.

But digging deeper, I’m puzzled by the award and how it’s presented. The administrators/members are pretty clear that they don’t want this to be like so many VOTE FOR ME VOTE FOR ME places:

Top Ten or Top Twenty-five lists are little more than popularity contests. You’ll find some great shows there, shows that deserve their popularity. But you’ll also find quite a few that are, well, let’s just say that more people listen to Brittany Spears than Miles Davis. If you rely on popularity based lists and awards you’ll be missing some of the best shows out there.

Where can you find the best podcasts in the universe? Right here, at the Podcast Peer Awards. These awards are given by the people who know podcasting best - other podcasters. They recognize quality. They celebrate creativity. They ferret out the small, unnoticed, and otherwise ignored shows you’ve missed. They debate and discuss and argue about these shows as they vote for (and against) audio and video podcasts that cover every style and every approach to podcasting. And in the end, only the best, only the very best, win.

Not a bad approach, in my opinion. But fellas, come on… you’ve gotta do something to raise the awareness of your product in the podosphere, people! I’m not saying that I’m the cats-ass when it comes to staying on top of the latest in podcasting, but I like to think I’m relatively well informed. Yet I had no idea these awards were being given away and that any of the books here on Podiobooks.com had been nominated. Heck, I didn’t even know there was a category for Best Podiobook! That just strikes me as odd.

So I don’t want to take anything away from any winners. And I don’t want to belittle the worthiness of the selection and/or voting process. It’s a great honor and I like the approach these folks are taking. But the strength of the award is only as good as the acceptance of that award in the community. I have no idea if I’m the typical in-the-know podcaster who is not in-the-know, or if I’m an anomaly. I think I’d like to know more about these awards and would like to have them talked about more, but it’s so quiet around here… I’m not sure.

This entry was posted by Evo on Monday, March 5th, 2007 at 6:32 pm and is filed under Author News, Rants. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.