It's over! It's done! The contest is finished, the polls are closed, and we have the results you've all been waiting for!
We had a lot of really fantastic entries this month! It was a tight race for a long time in the polls, but in the end we had not one, but TWO stories take the top spot! A big congratulations to:
The Doorway by Emma Anne Tate
-and-
When You Wish Upon a Star by SammyC
After some discussion, we have decided that both of you get the full first-place package: that's two DopplerPress ebooks of your choice, as well as a custom piece of art done by Melanie E. (that's me!) We will be reaching out to you via PM to confirm your win and to check on what you would like to receive.
These two stories aren't the only rewards going out today, however! Nay! We had intended to offer a first-place prize and two runner-up prizes, but due to having a tie for victory, we instead have a single runner-up prize being released. Our runner up, by a single vote, is...
876976880 Circuit Malfunction by Susan Brown
Congratulations Susan! Your prize is a single DopplerPress book of your choice! We will be reaching out to you via PM here on the site to talk about what prize you would like to receive.
Once again, a MASSIVE thank you to everyone who participated in the contest! It was a joy to see all the wonderful stories shared.
As a reader, did you miss any stories and want to catch up? Well, there's always the contest tag located at the top of this blog entry to check out everything, or you can follow this link to the announcement of voting, where you can also find links to all the stories.
Thank you again for everything! Ooh, and don't forget, April is the "Bring Your Daughter To Work Day" challenge! No voting, no prizes, but I still hope to see a lot of wonderful stories from everyone!
And now, for the second part of this announcement:
A Discussion On Polls
A lot of people displayed concern about the way that polling was done for this contest, and about what many saw as lackluster response. I would like to give folks a little bit of information on that.
1. The Response
I've seen and received a notable amount of concern that the poll response as a whole seemed a bit lackluster. The truth is, polls like this rarely get a ton of response no matter where they're hosted or how they're done. We got over 100 votes in the poll: that wasn't as much as I'd have LIKED to see, sure, but it's honestly a better turnout than I expected to see, even accounting for the fact many of those were the same people voting for multiple entries.
2. Patreon Use
There has been some question about using Patreon's polling. We went with Patreon for a few reasons. First, because let's face it, Patreon is an important part of the site's incoming revenue, so we need to do what we can to make sure people see it. Second, because its polling software is easy to use, and third, because polls can be left open to anyone who wants to vote. Some people were concerned about being able to vote multiple times by coming in via different paths, but that's an issue of any polling we could do without requiring an account of some kind to participate. These things run on trust, and always have.
3. Other Voting Methods
We decided on polling because it's the best way to make sure every story matters, and keep things fair. In the past, contests have used panels of judges, or kudo counts, or any number of other methods to determine victors. All these methods CAN work, but have their own problems. There's no such thing as an impartial judging panel here, and it puts a burden on a small group of people to engage with and remember every entry posted. Kudos tend to overwhelmingly favor popular authors over newcomers and niche writers. In both cases, charges of favoritism can occur as well -- "this person MUST have been a judge and voted for their own story!" "There were five stories posted the day mine went up, it didn't get kudos because of that!" We decided on polling because it guarantees that a vote is a vote, and that it's the community that decides who wins.
We're open to more discussion on methodologies in the future, but I'm hoping that poll interaction will pick up more as people get used to us having the contests running again.
Melanie E.
Comments
Thank you.
What I really appreciate is that the challenge fostered new approaches and new ideas, and moreover, participation. It's nice to see how these challenges spur growth for us as writers and as a community!. Thanks again!
Love, Andrea Lena
Thanks, Melanie!
I really appreciate all of your work putting this together. Thanks as well for your explanation of the voting and why it made sense. Hopefully participation will pick up as it become more familiar.
Thank you, as well, to everyone who read and appreciated The Doorway. Some stories I write. Some write me. This one was more in the second category.
— Emma
It is a fantastic story, Emma
As a PTSD survivor, I could really relate to the main character.
My heartfelt thanks to the BCTS community
First off, I'd like to thank the members of the Academy...oh, no...wrong pocket. That's my other acceptance speech. Hold on a minute...
Ah, yes. First off, I'd like to congratulate Emma and Susan for writing such wonderful, winning stories. Indeed, all the submitted stories were joys to read. I'm flummoxed that you like me. You really like me! (Oh, darn that cat, Maxine, my editor! She did it again! Mis-numbered these index cards)
But, seriously, the contest gave me the necessary push to start writing again after more than a half-year of feeling blocked. For that, I cannot begin to thank all my besties here on this site enough.
Muchas gracias,
Sammy
Congrats!
Congrats to Emma Anne Tate, SammyC, and Susan Brown! Well done ladies! I missed out on the process of voting, but I agree with those that did vote - these stories were very well done.
AND, I'd like to say this contest thing produced a lot of great stories and while I did not comment on all, I did Kudo / Thumbs Up those I read and I enjoyed many great reads. So if you missed it - check it out. :-)
XOXOXO
Rachel M. Moore...
I heartily agree
I'm glad that no one asked me to be a judge on this contest. I very carefully saw to it that I read every entry. There was only one (other than Melanie's who couldn't win anyway) that I didn't kudo. I'm sure that it was because that story went right over my head.
As to the winners, I couldn't agree more. All three were in the running for the top slot in my book.
Congratulations to Emma, Sammy and Susan
Hugs
Patricia
Happiness is being all dressed up and HAVING some place to go.
Semper in femineo gerunt
Ich bin eine Mann
Well Done!
Well done to the winners and runner up. I enjoyed all the stories submitted
As for engagement, I have been a reader here for many years but had never logged in until now. This competition spurred so many ideas that I had to write and submit some of them. Now I have a login, I'm hoping to share more stories in the future.
Thanks for getting me over the barrier!
All Worthy
I did vote for Emma but it was a hard decision.
Thank You
Your contest produced excellent results.
As the winner of what I think was your last contest, I felt a compelling need to try at least to go back-to-back. What I wrote was good but not as good as several others. In my opinion, the entries were on average the best seen in a BC contest.
There was some discussion of the small number of voters. The Miss America panel consists of five judges. The average jury in the U. S. consists of twelve people. I would be more concerned about the number of views each story received. It seems to me that stories used to draw between 2,500 and 3,000 views, whereas in this contest the average was under 1,200 views. It could be my memory is suffering from fishermen's syndrome.
The quality of the stories was born out by the kudos-to-views ratio. In my experience, a good quality story has a kudos-to-views ratio of six or better. The average for this contest was just shy of ten!
I was a judge for a contest over a decade ago. The story I would have picked as the best was selected as a winner. . .so there's that.
There has been some discussion about voting for your own story. I have a different slant. If you don't think your story was championship caliber, why did you enter? I always put in the work to create what I think is a winner. I always vote for my own story.
Sometimes what you write isn't the genre most people want to read. According to a Patreon poll, BC people simply don't fancy reading about seniors. Yet, at my age, I feel necessitated to write what I know. I like to read stories where I can closely identify with the protagonist. Senior stories are rare on BC and if I don't write them how can I expect anyone else to? Writing the best possible story is a personal goal and supersedes attracting the most views or votes. . .for me. It's impossible to know what criteria every voter used, but not everyone likes Moby Dick.
There were about six stories that could have been put in a hat -- and the winner pulled would have been acceptable. That takes nothing away from the three winners -- as they are deserving.
Thanks again to Mel and Erin . . . the Undaunted Duo.
Jill
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
I thought your story was excellent.
As for numbers, I feel like you've got a bit of confirmation bias going on due to your long-standing popularity :P
Personally, views nowadays seem about on par for me with what they've always been (around 1k hits on a story in its first week or two of life, then a slow trickle after that,) and kudos are up: me and Erin both consider something like 1 kudo/10 hits up until 1000 hits a good average metric, with stories that fare better than that being special.
Those numbers can fluctuate depending on the density of story posts coming into the site, of course -- high traffic/low story density raises engagement with any individual story but long term hurts traffic, while more stories lowers individual story engagement but helps drive more traffic -- but it all kind of tends to even out over the longer term.
I agree that this contest spurred some excellent entries, and I'm looking forward to seeing what people do for next month's challenge too. Thankfully, it being a no-prize month means we don't have to worry about a popularity game, and can just enjoy people's excellent work :)
*hugs*
Melanie E.
No worries on any of it
You did good! Well, you and those who helped did a splendid job.
Hugs
Diana