Literary Awards Fees – Where Do They Go?

• September 17, 2020
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For a while now, I have been seeing comments and questions on social media about the Literary Awards and fees. This week I decided to explain where those fees go, at least in the Reader Views Literary Awards. Contrary to popular belief, Literary Awards, if ethical and done properly, are not a money-making service. Most, if not all the fees go to judges’ fee, shipping, prizes, and overhead expenses. Take for example Reader Views Literary Awards. The regular entry fee is $89.00 which includes the following:

1. Book review written and first judging line score by judge/reviewer – In order for this to happen, the submitted title’s books must be received, logged, payment processed, assigned to a judge, and shipped. The costs for this process and shipping materials and postage are covered by the fee so from $89.00, that leaves roughly $54.00.
2. Book review editing and publishing, recording scores and tabulation, leaves roughly $24.00.
3. Correspondence with each author, 2nd and third line judging to pick winners, production and distribution, certificate PDF’s and award seal JPG costs more in time and labor than the $24.00 left. Yet, Reader Views has maintained almost the same fee for 15 years by revising mostly the extra category to make ends meet when some of the cost’s prices go up.

Please note that this break down does not cover the costs of the website and website maintenance, nor promotion, nor special awards offered to winners. So why do we keep investing in the Awards program? There are few reasons:

1. The main one has to do with our mission to get Indie Authors books out there. We genuinely believe that people should be able to choose what they want to read and not just what few consider marketable or valuable to their own agendas.  The Awards help us put the best of the year out there for our audience to find by giving them credibility.
2. We also consider the Awards an instrument that motivates Indie writers to produce better books and put an end to the idea that only traditional publishing can offer quality product in the book Industry.
3. Finally, the Awards also serves as a platform to connect Reader Views with new Authors and also to connect with readers and other colleagues in the Industry and create a networking community to help each other thrive.

We have been passionate about our mission since the beginning. The Awards is the place where all of us here at Reader Views let their hair down as we all look forward to collaboration. The judging process makes us feel we might just find the next best seller, or that our score will help a book we loved to be found for the next block buster movie. It is just where we get instant gratification, and when you love what you do, a little bit of free work for a book we loved can sound better than few more $.