Membership Update Prepared by 2017 Independent Review Committee - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

GCLS AWARDS PROCESS Membership Update Prepared by 2017 Independent Review Committee July 6, 2017

Four Primary IRC Goals ➢ Conduct an independent review to ensure the quality, integrity and prestige of the GCLS awards process , a key component of GCLS’s stated mission: “to recognize and promote lesbian literary work.” ➢ Make recommendations for how awards process can be improved so best books have an even better chance of being recognized as Goldie finalists and Goldie winners. ➢ Suggest ways to implement recommended improvements in the 2018 awards and beyond. ➢ Develop survey instruments, metrics and other devices as benchmarks for subsequent reviews .

Two Related IRC Questions ➢ What does “ independent” mean? ▪ No member of the IRC is currently on the GCLS board or participating in the judging process for books published in 2016, 2017 or 2018 – thus fulfilling the requirement for an independent “external” review as sanctioned by the GCLS Board. ➢ Who is on the IRC? ▪ Jenny Fielder (chair): Retired corporate executive and market researcher for newspaper industry. GCLS member for six years. Attended nine conferences with partner KG MacGregor. ▪ Donna Brown : GCLS member since beginning. Served as Goldie judge for one term. Avid reader and Xena : Warrior Princess fan. Administrative Assistant for sheriff’s department. ▪ Jane Chen : Won Goldie in 2010 writing as Trinity Tam (with wife Nell Stark) for everafter. Has attended three conferences. Marketing VP and Harvard grad. ▪ Leigh Howell : Attended seven GCLS conferences with sister, Lynne Pierce of Lesfic Unbound. Former editor for Blue Feather Books. Lives with husband Steve. ▪ MJ Lowe : GCLS member since 2004. Served on Board of Directors in 2008-2010 and as Awards Administrator for 2012-2014. Librarian by trade and training. ▪ Elaine Lynch : Attended 11 conventions. Served as Goldie judge five times. Been reviewing books since 2005. Married to GCLS Trailblazer Lee Lynch. Retired Quality Control specialist. ▪ Rosa Moran : GCLS member since beginning. Attended all conferences and awards ceremonies. Served as judge for four years. “Techie” by trade and training. ▪ Sharon Owens : Avid reader belonging to GCLS for seven years. Attended five conferences. Been presenter at awards ceremony. Retired library worker and former attorney.

IRC Primary Action Steps ➢ Participate as “faux nominator” and “faux judge” for real-time experience with GCLS awards process . ➢ Evaluate effectiveness of OpenWater online awards management software for accepting, processing and judging Goldie nominations . ➢ Contact key stakeholders via qualitative and quantitative surveys for opinions on ways to improve the awards. ▪ Awards administrators and board liaisons (findings from 11 of 12 reported 8/15/16) ▪ Publishers ( findings from 11 of 12 reported 9/22/16) ▪ Awards nominators (findings from 32 of 107 reported 11/21/16) ▪ Goldie judges (findings from 15 of 31 former 2015 judges reported 12/12/16; findings from 43 of 69 2016 judges reported 3/19/17) ▪ GCLS membership (findings from 150 of 593 reported 5/31/17) ➢ Analyze key metrics to supplement survey results (findings reported 1/5/17). ➢ Propose awards categories and category structure for 2018 and beyond (completed 4/10/17 and revised 6/6/17) . ➢ Incorporate relevant best practices of other book awards .

Overall Findings and Conclusions ➢ The Goldie Awards provide an important service to the lesbian community by shining a spotlight on books thought to be of high quality. ➢ Involvement by GCLS members in the awards process is considered vital to its success – particularly by volunteers who serve as judges, awards administrators, board liaisons and Goldie presenters. ➢ Recent changes have improved the awards process in important ways: ▪ Encouraging authors to submit their work as e-books saves time and money. ▪ Using OpenWater online awards management software to receive nominations, communicate with judges and record Goldie ratings simplifies the administrative process. ▪ Investing in training for judges via webinars and other outreach helps make judging more consistent and objective. ➢ Awards nominators have extremely favorable opinions about the submissions process they undertook to nominate books for the 2017 Goldies. OpenWater , in particular, is a major success story . ▪ Though opinions were still positive, nominators were less complimentary when evaluating their communication with GCLS throughout the process.

Awards Nominators: Opinions Percent Saying “Strongly Agree”* Description of DEBUT AUTHOR easy to understand 71% Judging guidelines for DEBUT AUTHOR thoroughly spelled out 71% Adequate information on entry fees 69% Easy to upload submissions in required eBook format 68% Instructions on how to submit nominations easy to understand 66% Call for nominations gave enough time to submit entries 63% Eligibility requirements easy to understand 60% Explanation of how many finalists and winners easy to understand 60% Easy to fill out "Nominator Information" page 59% Judging guidelines for GENRE categories thoroughly spelled out 56% Easy to complete "Submissions Materials" requests 56% OpenWater functioned well to accept, process nominations 53% Descriptions of GENRE categories made it easy to know where to 50% submit books Easy to create separate GCLS account to submit nominations 50% Awards administrators provided sufficient mechanisms for 47% questions, concerns Have received sufficient communications about entry so far 41% (22% disagree) *Chose highest rating of 4 on a 1-to- 4 scale, where 4 meant “strongly agree” and 1 meant “strongly disagree.”

Overall Findings and Conclusions ➢ Integrity and transparency of the GCLS awards process – both actual and perceived – are absolutely essential to the organization’s reputation and the confidence of its members. Unfortunately, integrity has been called into question by some, and the process isn’t as transparent as it could be. ▪ Perceived lack of transparency in how entries are judged is especially problematic . Dearth of feedback to entrants (and other judges) on how titles scored exacerbates the issue, as does not knowing the identity of judges subsequent to the competition. ▪ Status of the Goldie Awards has been devalued, in the opinion of some , by judges whose ratings sometimes reflect “fandom” more than literary merit, and because too many books in small categories are finalists by default. ➢ The relationship between major publishers and GCLS is strained . Some publishers believe the Goldie Awards benefit authors, readers and publishing companies, but others are hard pressed to name significant strengths. For some, the perceived weaknesses of the awards process are so great as to signal a potential withdrawal from future cycles. ▪ Among publishers, perceived weaknesses include lack of agreement about the role of “lesbian content” in submissions and “shifting rules ” in the awards process. ➢ Despite perceptions to the contrary, “ Big Eight” publishers are not substantially overrepresented when their percent of Goldie submissions in judged categories is compared to their percent of winning titles.

Goldie Publishers: % of Titles by Size ➢ Big Eight publishers * accounted for 63% of 330 titles submitted in judged categories in the 2016 awards competition. ➢ Multi-entry publishers outside the Big Eight (those with between two-and-nine titles submitted) accounted for 25% of all judged titles in 2016, while single-entry publishers accounted for only 12%. % Titles in Judged Categories by Publisher Size and Awards Cycle 63% 25% 12% 2016 (N=330) 64% 19% 16% 2015 (N=295) 65% 21% 14% 2014 (N=246) 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100% Big Eight Multi-Entry Publishers Single-Entry Publishers *Big Eight publishers ranked by number of submissions in judged categories in 2016: Bold Strokes Books (65), Bella Books (48), Ylva Publishing (24), Affinity Ebook Press (18), Shadoe Publishing (17), Regal Crest Enterprises(14), Sapphire Books (12) and Bedazzled Ink (11).

Goldie Publishers: % of Titles vs. Winners ➢ The Big Eight are slightly overrepresented when their percent of submissions is compared to their percent of winning titles. ▪ For the 2016 awards cycle , Big Eight publishers accounted for 63% of titles vs. 68% of winners . Multi-entry publishers were underrepresented (25% vs. 16%), while single- entry publishers were overrepresented (12% vs. 16%). JUDGED CATEGORIES* # Titles % Titles # Winning % Winning 2016 Awards Cycle: Big Eight Publishers 209 63% 26 68% Other Multi-Entry Publishers 82 25% 6 16% Single-Entry Publishers 39 12% 6 16% TOTAL 330 100% 38 100% 2015 Awards Cycle: Big Eight Publishers 190 64% 27 75% Other Multi-Entry Publishers 57 19% 5 14% Single-Entry Publishers 48 16% 4 11% TOTAL 295 100% 36 100% 2014 Awards Cycle: Big Eight Publishers 159 65% 24 67% Other Multi-Entry Publishers 52 21% 7 19% Single-Entry Publishers 35 14% 5 14% TOTAL 246 100% 36 100% *Traditional Contemporary Romance, Debut Autor, Dramatic/General Fiction, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Mystery/Thriller, Romantic Suspense/Intrigue/Adventure, Paranormal/Horror, Historical Fiction, Erotica, Anthology/Collections (Fiction), Young Adult, Poetry, Creative Non- Fiction and Anthology/Collections (Creative Non-Fiction).