Less Than a Week To Go

Its less than a week to go before we shut the door on submissions for The Swirl Awards! So, if you're an author and you've been sitting on the fence, you better get your feet moving.

We're going to start sending out requests for ARCs from all the nominees over the weekend. And notify others that they're books have been nominated for Best Cover and Series so they can get their readers behind them to vote.

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Today's sneak peeks...

To learn more about the author and their books, just click on the cover!

  

   

Our Judges Are Awesome!

Earlier this week we forwarded a judging preference questionnaire to all of our judges and within a 24-hour period we heard back from every single one.  In our humble opinion, that's what we here at the Swirl Awards call awesomeness!  I think they're more excited about judging than the authors who are competing. We can't really blame them.  We're already fighting amongst ourselves over the books we want to personally judge. All of them have piqued our interest. Thankfully, we won't have to wait long.  The deadline is less than two weeks away.

Although we have an equal amount of judges to entries, which is numbering in the high 70s, we can still use more because we're sure we'll receive more nominations before the May 1st deadline. If you're interested in judging or would like to nominate your book, we are in need of Young Adult and Inspirational, send us an email to: the swirl net@gmail.com (minus the spaces)!


Today's sneak peek at recent entries...

 

  

To learn more about the books and the authors, simply click on the cover!

Housekeeping and Other Things

This past week we've been pretty busy here at The Swirl Awards.  One of us attended and had a BLAST at this year's Romance Slam Jam in Little Rock Arkansas. While the other did a little housekeeping from compiling the final category lists, to sending all of our judges a reading preference questionnaire and preliminary score sheet. But all in all, we're on target in making the inaugural Swirl Awards a success!

Don't forget we are still accepting nominations and judges until May 1, 2012.  If you would like to enter the Swirl Awards or judge, send an email to: the swirl awards@gmail.com (without the spaces).  Readers can submit nominations for Best Cover and Best Series by leaving a comment on the appropriate page.

Click to look at mock score sheet

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Another sneak peek at recent entries...

         

             

To learn more about the book and the author, just click on the cover!

Hopping Along...

We hope everyone had a great weekend and a Happy Easter!  Things here at the Swirl Awards are going great!  Tomorrow will mark the first full week of accepting nominations and we're doing better than anticipated. So well, we added two new categories.

In the next week or so judges will receive a mock copy of the score sheet which will encompass everything from plot, character development and even author's voice.  I know it might sound hard, but its really a piece of cake and 'sort of fun' according to one of our co-chairs who's judged several RWA (Romance Writer's of America) chapter contests including the annual RITA.  

If you're an author and you want to enter, the deadline to submit your entry is May 1, 2012.  If you're not an author, you can nominate a book for BEST BOOK COVER and BEST SERIES.  And anyone can judge, and we need quite a few of those.  What's your reward?  The opportunity to read three books for free! To judge or nominate a book send us an email to: the swirl net @gmail.com (minus the spaces)

Today's Sneak Peak Nominations...
To read more about the entry or the author, just click on the cover! 
 

 

Break Out Categories...

Due to the overwhelming response to The Swirl Awards (YEAH!), we have decided to split up the contemporary category into two: BDSM and LGBT.  By adding these two genres, it will loosen up the competition in the contemporary category which has received the majority of the entries thus far.  If we receive more Sci-Fi/Fantasy entries before the May 1st deadline, we will break up the Paranormal category as well! 

A huge thanks again to the authors for their entries!  And to the readers, editors and authors who've signed up to judge, we really, really appreciate your help!


Today's sneak peak...
Click on the cover to read more about the author and their books!

    

     

  

   

P.S. If you're interest in judging, please email us at: the swirl net@gmail.com (minus the spaces)!

Inspirational and Young Adult Falling Short...

We just wanted to share with you all that except for Inspirational and Young Adult, we've already met our four titles per category minimum and then some, BUT KEEP THEM COMING! 

Of course there are 25 more days until the May 1st deadline, so we're keeping our fingers crossed that those two categories will reach their required limit! A huge thanks to all the authors for their entries.

Some Quick Q&A

I guess we'll take this opportunity to clear up some confusion with a quick Q&A round.   Here goes:

Q: Can anyone nominate books?
A: Anyone can nominate books for Best Cover and Best Series.  Only authors can nominate their own book for the other open categories. To nominate a book for best cover or series, just leave a comment on the respective pages.  If you're an author simply email the contest coordinator with the title of the book and the category!

Q: If I'm just an avid reader, can I judge?
A: Anyone can judge! As long as you like the IR/MC genre and you're willing to read three (3) books in the specified time allotted we'd love to have you judge for us.  To sign up as a judge, simply email contest coordinator!

Today's sneak peaks. The list of nominations keeps growing, but we'd love to have more, so don't be shy!

       

More Sneak Peaks...

Today's another day here at The Swirl Awards and we're getting more and more excited by the hour!  We've received some really great entries so far.  All this time we thought that between the both us we've read a ton of books within the interracial/multicultural genre. We we wrong! With each entry we're discovering new ones. 

Of course that makes our pocketbooks sad, but then we're ecstatic that we're accomplishing what we set out to do and that's to promote MC/IR books that might have been overlooked or lost in the shuffle. Well, for us anyway.  We know some readers who've read and buy everything out there.

Before we sign off, we wanted to give you all another sneak peaks at some of the entries we received yesterday!

  

    

SO HAVE YOU DISCOVERED A STORY YOU'VE OVERLOOKED/MISSED?  WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT THE ENTRIES SO FAR?  DO YOU LIKE THE IDEA OF THE SWIRL AWARDS?

Best Book Cover and Best Series Updates

It was brought to our attention that the Best Book Cover and Best Series nominating process was a little too restrictive. So we've decided to allow anyone to submit nominees with no restrictions!

And the Nominations are Already Coming in...

All of us here at The Swirl Awards would like to give a big thanks to all the authors who've jumped in heads first and submitted their books for our inaugural awards!  Here's a peek at the entries we've received so far:) Interested in learning more about the author and their books, just click on the respective covers!

Are you an author and you want to nominate your book? Or do you want to be a judge? Just send your nomination or request to be a judge to: the swirl net @gmail.com (minus the spaces) by May 1, 2012!

    

      

Plug to our web designer

We've received a ton of compliments on our website design.  So, we wanted to take this opportunity to plug our awesome web designer, Becca Paro of Jumping Jax Designs.  This stay-at-home mom has become our go-to-girl on our other ventures as because of her quick turnaround (1-3 days) and reasonable prices! 

We're happy to announce that The Swirl Awards is now open for nominations!  If you are interested in entering or would like to judge, please visit our official rules page at  http://www.swirlawards.com/p/overview.html!

Updates:

• Clarification on menage/multiple partner pairings
• Deadline date to nominate a book
• Addition of Romantic Suspense category (by request)