Next Big Recognition Contest

This Forum is for every participant to voice their concerns/ideas/questions in order to help improve the contest.

If you've got concerns, follow these steps:

1. Comment your concern on this page. Any new discussion topic will be posted up for discussion.

2. I will post up the discussion topics with an Identifying Discussion Number.

3. When you comment on topics brought forth, be sure to hit reply (I decided to do this to keep it more interactive)

4. Any final verdict about topics discussed on this Forum will be posted on the Contest Update Chapter.

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ID1. Starting today Friday 31st, I will begin a book screening process before new Authors enter the contest. Do you agree with me? Would this go against our Movement: No Author Gets Left Behind? My reason for doing this is to ensure we have a diverse bookshelf - I'm sure most of you wouldn't want to spend an entire week reading about One Direction right? Please comment.

ID2. If you think there should be a book screening, what should we look for in a book? How do you define a good book from a bad book? What kind of screening process would you like to see?

ID3. Comment topics for the week vs. Author's notes. Should we keep one or the other, or keep both.

ID4. I've already seen commenters feel 'forced' to read genres they're not interested in. How do you feel about this? Is there added value in this?

ID5: I have an idea to bring forward.We will not always be graced with having the first chapter. There will be times where as reader we have to jump into the middle of the story. What if, along with the author's note, we add a brief summary section? We can list things there that we feel are important for the reader to know before they jump into the assigned chapter.Ex: Chapter 5 is assigned, but what the heck happened before? We could have a little list to highlight anything we want to reader to know before hand.Example Chapter Summaries(NOT based on my book):*Bob is the protagonist. His wife died a year ago.*He is a retired cop*He has been visited by monsters at night*They take him into a place called: The Dungeon's keep*His girlfriend aids him from time to time*etc.

ID6: Regarding information about the book for chapters prior, maybe the authors can add a section within the chapter that people are going to read. Like they put in bold text with NBR on the top of the chapter with the background information and also the authors comments. That way readers won't have to go back and look on this page for what type of feedback the authors want. Also, putting a description of previous events wouldn't ruin it for the people who are reading the book who aren't in NBR anyway. Once the week is over the authors can remove those notes.

ID7: You might as well post 4-6 authors for each contest, and ask that the participants read at least 2/3 authors, according to what they would like. If they don't wanna read any of them, the can convey it through this page. i believe all the above concerns are interconnected bc only when you have a diverse bookshelf, people will read and comment more. So it'll be wise to have a book screening too

ID8: In my personal opinion, you can add more from the teen fiction as they attract a lot of readers.

ID9: How should we handle very mean and condescending comments? Should the moderator step in or is this something better handled by the authors themselves?

ID10: How do you feel about bringing in 3 additional participants before spotlighting another chapter?

ID11: What other ideas do you have that will encourage and incentivize writers to remain with the contest after they've been spotlighted?

Anymore concerns? Comment the on the threads below.