Bloggy Awards 2013

HELLO HELLO! It's time for the Bloggy Awards to start again! Eileen's away so I (Nikki @ Fiction Freak) am going to be your host for the majority of the tour! So if things suck more than last year, I am unbelievably sorry.

Make sure you follow @TheBloggyAwards for updates, winners, and more!

Also, like the new design? I do! (And no, I'm not biased because I made the banner...okay, maybe a little)

So last year some things happened that we didn't expect, so here's how it's going to go:

Rules

• When talking about the Awards, please use the hastag #BloggyAwards13
• No nominating for yourself, though feel free to go twitter rampaging!
• We're going off the honor system here, so please don't lie! 
• No giveaways please! We will be checking and any giveaways related to the Awards will result in immediate disqualification
• IF YOU WON AN AWARD LAST YEAR, YOU CAN NOT BE IN THE VOTING FOR THE SAME CATEGORY. Any other category you didn't win in last year is fine! Next year, feel free to enter again! This is to give more people a better chance!
• Only the top 5 nominated bloggers will make it into voting, though we will make exceptions for ties or extremely close wins
• Each blogger may only be an official nominee for 3 categories. 
• If you make it into the voting for 3+ categories, we will email/tweet you to see which categories you'd like to stay in. 
• If you do not respond, we will be forced to choose the 3 categories that are up for voting the soonest.
• EACH BLOGGER MUST REPLY TO THE OFFICIAL NOMINEE EMAIL AND TURN IN THE NEEDED MATERIALS (like last year, we will be asking for a "testimony"[1-3] from a fellow blogger or an author friend). Please turn these in a day before voting goes up. We'll tweet you to let you know!
• Each blogger may only win one category. 
• We will also be emailing/tweeting about this. If you don't respond, again, we'll choose the first category that ended.

The Categories

(In no particular order and with explanations)

Nicest Blogger: The nicest blogger you know?

Twitter Fiend: Biggest online presence!
Best Design: The prettiest design

Blogging Fairy: The one who knows everything about anything bloggy.
Best Breakout Blog: New blog (under six months) with the biggest reaction
Best Tour Group Blog: The nicest tour group blog that hosts the best tours!
Most Influential: The blogger who's word is (almost) law
Best Group Blog: Your favorite 2+ people blog?
Most Creative Blog: Which blog has the most creative events/design
Trending Blog: What blog do you think is making it's name known?
Best Reviews: Who's reviews do you always read and use/consider?
Well-Known Blog: The biggest blog? 
Blogs, and Books, and Media, oh my: The author who blogs the most and has a big online presence! 

Most Social Author: What author do you think interacts with her fans the most?
Best Meme: The Meme you love the most?
Most Hilarious Review: Which review made you LOL?

Nicest Negative Review: The review that wasn't quite positive, but still managed to be nice about it?

Publishing Fun: Which Publisher hosted an event or website you like the most? (LEAVE NOMINATIONS FOR THIS IN THE COMMENTS) EX: Tea Time, Signings, Pulse It, Pitch Dark, Breathless Reads, Fierce Reads, etc.

The Schedule

Here's the schedule for voting. VOTING WILL LAST UNTIL FRIDAY. 

July 14/15-Announce the nominees 

July 21-Best Breakout Blog and Trending Blog

July 22-Best Group Blog and Best Tour Blog

July 23-Best Design and Most Creative

July 24-Nicest Blogger and Well Known Blog

July 25-Twitter Fiend and Best Meme

July 26-Most Influential and Best Reviews

July 27-Blogging Fairy and Favorite Publisher

July 28-Most Hilarious Review and Nicest Negative Review

July 29-Most Social Author and Blogs, Books, and Media oh my

Aug 5-Winners

IF YOU HAVE ANY MORE QUESTIONS PLEASE EMAIL Bloggyawards@gmail.com or check our FAQ

Best Tour Group Blog Nominees!

 VOTING IS NOW CLOSED BEWITCHING BOOK TOURS HAS WON :)

 Here's how it's going to run down: there will be a poll at the bottom of this post and you simply just vote for your favorite blog out of all of these arguments! :) Each day, there will be THREE voting rounds posted, so you'll have to scroll down and see all the posts for yourself. Each voting round lasts for exactly a week and once every voting round it done, winners will be announced, and prizes (if you would like to donate contact us. Please remember that if we don't get enough prizes we won't be giving ANY out at all) shipped out—that is, if the winner wants a prize.

For the Best Tour Group Blog nominees, we asked for the kind of tours they hosted, the kind of hosts they have, the amount of people signing up for each tour on average, and a little about they blog.

Dark Mind Book Tours

• What kind of tours you host: We host tours about urban/dark fantasy, paranormal romance and dark erotica, but we don't have limits to who books our tours. Most of our clients are indie authors, but we have also published authors and even publishing companies.
• What kind of hosts you have: We have lots of blogs, but recently we introduced the requirement for who wants to become a tour host to have at least 150 followers and at least 1600 monthly pageviews (they have to match both requirements, though), because we want to make sure that authors get the visibility they deserve.
• A little about your blog: Dark Mind Book Tours is for those who read, write and love to spread the word about urban/dark fantasy, paranormal romance and dark erotica, some of the most powerful genres out there.

Itching for Books

• How many people on average sign up for your tours: 70+
• What kind of tours do you host: I host for indie authors, publishers, young adult tours, you name it. I don't turn away any one.
• What kind of hosts you have? They're from the states, Canada, Australia, UK, Asia. Its a diverse community.
• A little about your blog? Itching for Books is little over 4 months old and has already garnered a lot of attention and support. Its exciting seeing the response I get whenever I announce a tour. The spots usually get filled in an hour to less than 12 hours, no matter when the schedule is. From the beginning I wanted to start a book blog that was open to all sorts of books not just YA, and I wanted everyone to feel welcomed and appreciated whenever they visit by personally responding to their feedback.

Kismet BT
Bewitching Book Tours
Goddess Fish

• How many people on average sign up for your tours: We currently run between 25 – 35 tours a month on average, though that number is growing by the day! We love working with our authors and are thrilled at how many keep coming back to us.
• What kind of tours you host: We prefer to host genre fiction (romance, science fiction/fantasy, mystery and YA) but have also successfully run tours for non-fiction books, action/thrillers and others. We happily work with both traditionally published authors and indie/self-published authors. We’ve run tours for Harper Collins and for indie authors in the same month.
• What kind of hosts you have: Our tour host list consists of more than 400 blogs (also growing daily). We use both book blogs and author blogs, and require that our hosts have active blogs, with significant viewer numbers to host our tours. We do make some exceptions occasionally, as we also want to help our hosts grow their blogs as well. But when we use smaller blogs, we double book the dates so the author still gets plenty of eyes on their posts. It’s important to us that our authors get plenty of bang for their buck.
• A little about your blog: We’ve been in business since early 2009 and specialize in promotional packages of all kinds for authors. We not only do virtual book tours, but also graphic design (including book covers, banner ads, blog/site headers and more), book videos, release parties and more. Both Judy and Marianne are published authors and former book editors and know how hard it is to get the word out about a book when you’re working on a budget.

With over fifteen years combined experience in publishing and promotion, the owners of Goddess Fish Promotions know what it's like to try to market yourself a on a shoestring budget and our goal is to make premier promotional opportunities available for everyone.

Just take a look at what some of our authors have said about us!
I loved the tour! The turnout was better than I could have ever expected. I'd definitely book another tourwhen the times comes. - Sara Brookes about her virtual tour for "Chasing Sin"

You were ALWAYS there to answer any questions and always willing to help in any way. I wouldn't
change a thing. My experience was wonderful and I'll be in touch when it comes time for my next tour. -Toni Lynn Cloutier about her virtual tour for "The Patriot Girl"

I fully intend on singing Goddess Fish's praises to anyone who is considering a book tour. - Gabrielle
Bisset about her virtual tour for "Blood Avenged"

I was incredibly impressed how well organized the blog tour was. This is the most efficient and well-run blog tour service I’ve ever encountered. Your process is wonderful, with small details handled so well that nothing falls through the cracks – you guys must be exhausted! - KH LeMoyne about her virtual book tour for "Return of the Legacy"

Full Moon Bites

• How many people on average sign up for your tours: On average? Honestly it has a lot to do with the genre of the book but right off, on the first day of sending out the tour invite, around 20. 
• What kind of tours you host: We host for any author, whether indie or with a major publisher—we love them all! The genre’s we host vary. We host Paranormal, Contemporary, Romance, Fantasy (Urban/Dark), Young-Adult, Erotica (Male/Male, Male/Female and Ménage as well), Horror and more—really most all fiction genres. You can find a full list HERE. 
• What kind of hosts you have: Like the genre’s we tour, our tour hosts match them. They are a mixture of all genres but a lot of the hosts love more than one genre which is always great! :)
• A little about your blog: Full Moon Bites is a book review blog that hosts a variety of genres from Erotica to Young-Adult as before--we love them all. Full Moon Bites prides our selves on the diversity of our genres and vow never to stick to just one—how could we when there are so many lovely ones out there? :) We also love to help promote the authors of those books. In fact, we love promoting wonderful books so much that in January of 2012 we created a branch of Full Moon Bites that does just that: FMB Blog Tours ~ Book PR 365 Day’s a Year! (AKA Full Moon Bites Tours) We have toured quite a few authors already and received some wonderful testimonials. All packages start at just $10.00 and we have a few of them. Why should book promo be so expensive? We also run promotions from month to month for discounts on packages.

survey hosting

See the CURRENT Nomination List!

EDIT: the nomination list has been taken down so we can determine the final nominees in each category. Emails and an announcement will arrive shortly.

This is the current list of nominations so far, and if we've programmed it right, it should automatically update itself whenever we update the list of nominations. Check back frequently to see if you're blog is up there or as a reference for what blogs you would like to nominate :) Again, please tell the people you nominate: the purpose of The Bloggy Awards is to spread blogger love and to meet new blogs! So if you want to say "Thank you" to your favorite blog for being awesome, go ahead and nominate them!

Also please note that if you want to open the link to a specific blog, you'll have to right click on the link and open it in a new tab or window. Sorry for the inconvenience, but we're still new on this whole Google Document thing :)

***Please note that if you are using INTERNET EXPLORER you will not be able to see the nomination list as it should be. We're trying to fix it but for some reason Internet Explorer isn't compatible and all the colors we use to document how many nominations someone gets is going completely haywire but thank you for understanding.

Remember, nominations end August 13th, Monday night 11:59 Eastern Standard Time

Please scroll down to the post following this one to learn more about how to nominate people

~The Bloggy Awards

The Nominations Begin!

The Bloggy Awards' nominations are officially open! Nominations will be open for officially one week, until Monday, August 13th, 11:59 eastern standard time.

To refresh your memory, the Bloggy Awards is an event quite like the Grammys, Tonys, Emmys, Teen Choice Awards, etc. etc. only for bloggers and it will be held online. It will last approximately a month, and the winners of the awards get bragging rights of being the best at their category. 

To nominate, email in your choices to: bloggyawards@gmail.com. You can email in exactly THREE blog choices for each category. Please format your nominations as so:

Category Name
Blog Name (link)
Blog Name (link)
Blog Name (link)

You can nominated up to three blogs for all the categories, but please make sure to try and vary your choices. It would be no fun if a blog was nominated for every single award. Additionally, try to highlight some smaller blogs, too. Don't just go for the blogs with the most followers, try to nominate smaller blogs. The point of the Bloggy Awards is to let everybody know about some new blogs and also share the blogger love.

Please note that IF YOU NOMINATE ONE BLOG FOR MULTIPLE AWARDS, your nomination will be deleted. We don't want one blog being nominated for all the awards, and we want to recognize as many blogs as possible, and even if you really like a blog, please don't list the one blog for EVERY category where it's remotely applicable. That is diminishing many other people's chances to be nominated and get to be an official nominee.

Also, if you would like to be an official nominee for a category, find your blogger friends and ask them to nominate you! Try to tell as many people as possible about these and we really want these to be special and really successful!

Once nominations close, we will tally up the votes, publicly announce the official nominees, and then send the nominees a set of questions. For each category, there will be a different set of questions we ask for the nominees. We will then publish the questions here and the official voting for the final winner will be open for a week. Simple right?

The categories are:

• Well-known blogger
• Best design
• Best reviews
• Most helpful
• Best breakout blog (Best new blog, meaning within six months)
• Best review for a contemporary book (For this, if you nominate somebody leave a link to their review)
• Best review for a paranormal book (For this, if you nominate somebody leave a link to their review)
• Best review for a dystopian book (For this, if you nominate somebody leave a link to their review)
• Best review for a sci-fi book (For this, if you nominate somebody leave a link to their review)
• Best review for a fantasy book (For this, if you nominate somebody leave a link to their review)
• Best meme
• Nicest blogger
• Most creative blogger
• Hottest blog (best content: I just got tired of constantly saying "Best" and "Most")
• Best group blog
• Most influential
• Best author blog
• Promo Queen 
• Best tour group blog

(If you have a more original name, feel free to tell us so we can fix it!)

We really want this one to be successful, so please try and tweet and spread the word about this so as many blogs as possible will participate! Please check out the "About the Bloggy Awards" page for more information and "FAQ" if you have any other questions.

As of now, the winner will probably only get bragging rights for winning the award and a web button to go with it, but we are working on getting swag out to the winners if any authors are willing to participate.

If you have any questions, feel free to tweet us or email us.

Again, we really hope this is successful and don't be afraid to help spread the word, ask questions, and nominate people!

Note: Even if somebody says they don't accept awards, you can still nominate them. This isn't a typical awards thing where you pass it on to other bloggers, this is just spreading blogger love and recognizing the blogs who've gone above and beyond. :)