I agree that these three categories should be deleted, and I think the "Best Anthology/Collection" and "Best Professional Magazine" categories are good replacements.
But I really don't see the point of giving an award for Best Publisher. Publishers are businesses, and I feel very uncomfortable with the idea of asking fans to give awards to corporate businesses. Specific works, or specific people (in very specific instances)? That makes sense. But business-based awards are generally given by industry groups, not consumers. Giving an award to an author for excellence in a specific work makes sense, but then giving a separate award to the publisher for publishing the work (that might already have been given a separate award) seems kind of redundant. Rewarding an artist or a piece of art makes sense; rewarding the corporate infrastructure behind the artist seems unnecessary.
(Yes, I realize that we technically do this with magazines. But I think there's an obvious difference in scale between a book publisher and a magazine.)
And to be frank, I don't think the vast majority of fandom really sees a principled difference between the various publishers. I'm not in a position to judge publishers based on their business practices, so the only metric I can see is "who publishes my favorite authors"? But if I love 7 authors published by Orbit, 7 authors published by Baen, 7 authors published by Tor, and 6 authors published by Daw, where does really that leave me? What if an author I love publishes with both Baen and Tor? What if I vote for Orbit one year because I love 8 of its authors, more than any other publisher . . . but the following year, two of those authors I love have moved to Tor. Suddenly Tor has the most authors that I love, so I vote for Tor. But that means my "love" isn't really about the publisher, it's about the authors, and I can already give awards to those authors for specific works, so why am I bothering giving an award to the publisher?
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2015-09-05 02:42 am (UTC)But I really don't see the point of giving an award for Best Publisher. Publishers are businesses, and I feel very uncomfortable with the idea of asking fans to give awards to corporate businesses. Specific works, or specific people (in very specific instances)? That makes sense. But business-based awards are generally given by industry groups, not consumers. Giving an award to an author for excellence in a specific work makes sense, but then giving a separate award to the publisher for publishing the work (that might already have been given a separate award) seems kind of redundant. Rewarding an artist or a piece of art makes sense; rewarding the corporate infrastructure behind the artist seems unnecessary.
(Yes, I realize that we technically do this with magazines. But I think there's an obvious difference in scale between a book publisher and a magazine.)
And to be frank, I don't think the vast majority of fandom really sees a principled difference between the various publishers. I'm not in a position to judge publishers based on their business practices, so the only metric I can see is "who publishes my favorite authors"? But if I love 7 authors published by Orbit, 7 authors published by Baen, 7 authors published by Tor, and 6 authors published by Daw, where does really that leave me? What if an author I love publishes with both Baen and Tor? What if I vote for Orbit one year because I love 8 of its authors, more than any other publisher . . . but the following year, two of those authors I love have moved to Tor. Suddenly Tor has the most authors that I love, so I vote for Tor. But that means my "love" isn't really about the publisher, it's about the authors, and I can already give awards to those authors for specific works, so why am I bothering giving an award to the publisher?