I know I've seen these before, but this is one of the most recent ones, so I have a link: http://www.clcawards.org/Index.html
It's Book Awards where you pay to enter and it seems like the lists of past winners are all self-published or small press books - and there are a TON of "winners". The whole thing feels very scammy BUT I see authors putting these award seals on their covers and advertising that their award winning writers. Maybe from an insiders view of the writing world it doesn't seem very impressive, but I think to the average reader who is a non-writer, it looks like it's almost at the same level as other prestigious awards who put medallions on covers, like the Printz Book Award.
My questions is - as authors, do we avoid these knowing their scams? Are there authors out there who genuinely don't realize it's a scam? Are there authors out there who accept that it's an award they paid for and know it's not that great but put it on their books anyway, knowing they may be able to scam potential readers into taking their books more seriously because they have a fancy medallion on the cover??
It's Book Awards where you pay to enter and it seems like the lists of past winners are all self-published or small press books - and there are a TON of "winners". The whole thing feels very scammy BUT I see authors putting these award seals on their covers and advertising that their award winning writers. Maybe from an insiders view of the writing world it doesn't seem very impressive, but I think to the average reader who is a non-writer, it looks like it's almost at the same level as other prestigious awards who put medallions on covers, like the Printz Book Award.
My questions is - as authors, do we avoid these knowing their scams? Are there authors out there who genuinely don't realize it's a scam? Are there authors out there who accept that it's an award they paid for and know it's not that great but put it on their books anyway, knowing they may be able to scam potential readers into taking their books more seriously because they have a fancy medallion on the cover??
