News Archive: Summer 2009

     Hmonster4: we don’t talk anymore
     Gustariana: you are done with me, aren’t you?
     Hmonster4: hehe, it does feel weird
     Gustariana: I know! my life has lost its meaning! ~snorts~
     Hmonster4: LMAO drama queen…
     Gustariana: ~gigglesnort~

Okay, so we made that chat up, but it’s not far off of a real gchat session the other day.

For almost five months, the Indies have been a major part of our life. From a harebrained reactionary idea to the real deal, it got more response than we could have ever dreamed of.

For that, we owe you all a huge thank you.

Thank you for supporting something that we both feel so passionate about. Thank you for nominating stories and voting. Thank you for spreading the word.

We are in regroup mode right now. Getting some rest and finally getting to read the stories that you all nominated. We’ll kick back into work in a few weeks.

But in the meantime, a number of people have asked how the Indies did: how many registered users, how many votes, that sort of thing. We’ve also been asked how it measured up to our expectations and what our future plans are.

So we’ve put together a quick recap– what you did, what it’s done for the stories nominated, etc.

Our website, http://theindietwificawards.com, has received over forty thousand hits since the moment it went live. This covered the nominations as well as the voting rounds. That is a LOT! All of these site visits lead us to get an outstanding 3,211 verified users.

To give you an idea of the power that 3,211 readers have just take a look at the amount of stories that they nominated. We had over 18,000 nominations sent for all categories. These nominations resulted in 757 stories being validated and published as Indies nominees. That is enough reading material to last you a good 10 years!

The amount of votes cast during each round was amazing. The first round of votes drew in 38,458 votes, while the second round drew in 23,577 votes. The higher volume on the first round is due to the fact that we captured 10 votes per category, while the second round was only one vote.

If at any point you are “running low on fics to read” you should stop over our site again and check out the archived list. It is really full of amazing stories. We have started the process of adding them to a C2 in fanfiction.net, but the main list will remain posted on our site. Remember that the C2 only contains stories from fanfiction.net, we had many other sites (Twilighted, Simply Twlight, and Live Journal to mention a few) represented during the voting period and this is just another opportunity to learn about other story archives in the twilight fan fiction world.

Impact on Traffic

We did a fairly unscientific polling of winners and nominees, asking them to quantify the impact that the Indies had on their site traffic. It was a mix.

A number of authors reported seeing spikes in traffic and author alerts during the nomination and voting process. One author indicated that she saw 300 author alerts right after the final winners were announced. Another saw her traffic increase by 500 percent during the month of July. While not every story received such dramatic bumps, authors did cite being added to c2’s, as well as picking up new reviewers who credited the Indies with helping them find the story.

But reviews haven’t trickled in anywhere near as much as we hoped. While we don’t want to get on a soapbox and crusade for everyone to review, the unfortunate reality is that review count or word of mouth tends to be the largest drivers of story awareness. Neither of us are very good reviewers (we readily admit that), but we find ourselves going out of our way now to leave comments on the stories that we read, as well as spread the word on those we love.

We both learned a great deal out of the experience. Not only about the fandom and the caliber of stories available, but about ourselves as well. It will sound a bit gratuitous, but the entire experience was truly rewarding, albeit exhausting. We wanted to give something back, to try and create a platform for stories to gain awareness. While we might not have executed everything flawlessly (um, hello bandwidth issues! More space has already been purchased), we couldn’t be more happy with the end result.

So what comes next? We mentioned a winter version of the Indies. We’ll unveil it towards the end of September or early October, once we have the framework all fleshed out. It will be different in content from the summer edition, so there will not be any repetition of stories, that we can tell you.

In the meantime, if you have thoughts or insights that you’d like to share, please feel free to email us at indie.twific.awards@gmail.com. You can also @ reply to us on Twitter, at @TheIndiesTwific. We are always open to ideas or observations so that we can make the next round a success.

Thank you again, so much from the bottom of our hearts. This endeavor was a success thanks to all of you, and for that we will be eternally grateful.

Happy Reading!

G&H

A few months ago we thought it was a crazy idea... it evolved into an epic quest for just the right logic... then once we were up and running the hours of validations and constant checks and balances were filled with wonder whenever we came across a true gem, and frustration when we realized it really was a LOT of work!

The winners will receive banners specially made for them by angstgoddess003 and t-shirts courtesy of WeBook Apparel (http://webookapparel.com). Thanks to both for their donations!

It is with great pleasure and even more excitement that we announce the winners of the Summer '09 Indie Twific Awards!

  Best Alternate Universe Complete:
          Cowboys & Indians by Minisinoo
  Best Alternate Universe Human Complete:
          Behind Enemy Lines by SilverSeaGull by SilverSeaGull aka Namariel
  Best Alternate Universe Human WIP:
          The Blessing and The Curse by The Black Arrow
  Best Alternate Universe WIP:
          Carpe Noctem & Fiat Lux by queenofgrey
  Best Canon Complete:
          Die to Self by JenWordSong
  Best Canon WIP:
          Restoration by siouxchef
  Best Characterizations (non Edward/Bella) Complete:
          Save You by socact
  Best Characterizations (non Edward/Bella) WIP:
          Bare by stella luna sky
  Best Collaboration:
          Socks for Sex by goldentemptress & nostalgicmiss
  Best Crackfic Complete:
          Emmett and Alice Go to Church by Nowhere and Quizno's
  Best Crackfic WIP:
          The Good Looking Looney Toons Stalker Guy by jajo
  Best Indie story by Established Author we Know and Love:
          Sin and Incivility by Pastiche Pen
  Best non ExB Story Line Complete:
          The Elite by Fate.of.Gabriel
  Best non ExB Story Line WIP:
          In Pursuit of Normalcy by KariAnn
  Best Original Character Complete:
          The elite by Fate.of.Gabriel
  Best Original Character WIP:
          Oh, Inverted World by DeviKalika
  Best Other:
          Royally Screwed by faerie kitten
  Best Secondary Story Line Complete:
          The Elite by Fate.of.Gabriel
  Best Secondary Story Line WIP:
          Boy in the Red Sweater by Starrynytex
  Best Undiscovered Erotica Complete:
          Mirrors by irebporti
  Best Undiscovered Erotica WIP:
          The Acclimation Diaries by booboo.kitty2.0
  Best Use of Comedy Complete:
          Behind Enemy Lines by SilverSeaGull by SilverSeaGull aka Namariel
  Best Use of Comedy WIP:
          Oh, Inverted World by DeviKalika
  Best Use of Music as Inspiration Complete:
          Music Lessons by locqua
  Best Use of Music as Inspiration WIP:
          Off Limits by lexiecullen17
  Most Original Story Line Complete:
          Behind Enemy Lines by SilverSeaGull by SilverSeaGull aka Namariel
  Most Original Story Line WIP:
          The Blessing and the Curse by The Black Arrow
  Most Romantic Moment Complete:
          Same Time Next Year by socact
  Most Romantic Moment WIP:
          Bare by stella luna sky


In addition to the winners selected by Voting via the readers, our panel of judges selected stories that deserve a recognition of merit as being amazing examples of Indie fics. These stories were selected from the full list of nominees (over 700 stories) that were part of our Summer '09 cycle.
The winners of the Judges Awards for Special Merit are:

   Ars Moriendi by vanilladoubleshot
   Commission by SpikeIsHotter
   Detriut by Somah
   Endless Daylight by Princess Bertha
   Sleepers, Awake: Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme by Feisty Y. Beden
   Someone Else’s Memoirs by a certain slant of light


To say that we are thankful for the participation during this cycle is an understatement. We had over an outstanding number of users registered during the whole process, the final round of voting pulled in over 1700 users alone! For a second we thought we would not surpass the amount of votes we got during the 1st round but we did, by a really healthy margin!

Thank you to every one of you that voted, to everyone that mentioned the awards and supported what we wanted to do. In the end we feel that we met our goal, and that is to highlight the amazing fics out there that may not get all the recognition they deserved.

We encourage you to bookmark our site as we will keep an archive of all the stories nominated. That is truly the greatest result from this cycle.

You can find the full list of nominated stories by clicking HERE.
Also, we have set up a C2 in Fanfiction.net for the stories that can be found there. You can visit and subscribe by clicking HERE.
For updates please follow us on Twitter at: @TheIndiesTwific
You can also find us on the Twilighted threads at: http://www.twilighted.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=4113&start=0

Please check back Monday 8/3 at 9pm EST for the unveiling of the Summer 2009 Indie Twi Fic Award winner announcements!

For updates please follow us on Twitter at: @TheIndiesTwific
You can also find us on the Twilighted threads at: http://www.twilighted.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=4113&start=0

Only one more day to VOTE for the Indie Twi Fic Awards! Voting closes 7/29 at midnight!

If you haven’t, please go and vote now!
Please click HERE to go vote.

Winners will be announced on Monday 8/3. In addition to the awards for each categories, on Tuesday 8/4 we will be announcing Winners of the Judges Awards of Merits.

For updates please follow us on Twitter at: @TheIndiesTwific
You can also find us on the Twilighted threads at: http://www.twilighted.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=4113&start=0

Voting will take place from July 22 at 9pm EST, until July 29 at Midnight EST.
Please click HERE to go vote.

For updates please follow us on Twitter at: @TheIndiesTwific
You can also find us on the Twilighted threads at: http://www.twilighted.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=4113&start=0

We are excited to announce the Finalists for the Summer '09 edition of The Indies!!!

Please click HERE to view the top 10 stories selected for each category.

Review the finalists and get ready for the final round of voting that will occur from 7/22 to 7/26. Voting will open in the evening of 7/22 (approximately 9pm ET)

We have kept the full list of nominees up on our website, if you need to refer to it please click HERE. In addition, we are working on a Fanfiction.net community (C2) to host all the stories that are available from that site. The C2 can be found here: http://www.fanfiction.net/c2/72233/3/0/1/

Today is your last chance to vote! Remember that voting closes at midnight tonight.

Also, please note that our schedule has been revised as follows:

First round of voting: 7/9 to 7/13 at midnight
Short list of Final Nominations: 7/18
Final voting: 7/22 to 7/26
Winners announced: 7/28

Votes are final, there will no changes allowed to votes once submitted.
You may select up to 10 stories per category.

Please note that our schedule has been revised as follows:

First round of voting: 7/9 to 7/13 at midnight
Short list of Final Nominations: 7/15
Final voting: 7/22 to 7/26
Winners announced: 7/28

This schedule is tentative and may change if we experience any technical difficulties.
For updates please follow us on Twitter at: @TheIndiesTwific
You can also find us on the Twilighted threads at: http://www.twilighted.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=4113&start=0

Due to unforeseen technical difficulties we have postponed the Voting for the awards to tomorrow, July 9th at noon EST.

You will be able to vote for 10 stories in each category. Remember that the 10 stories with the most votes will move on to the next round. Support your favorite stories by voting!

We have been hard at work contacting authors and doing the last validations of stories and how well they fit the category they were nominated for. As a result we are posting the latest list of stories nominated, now you can view them by category! Click HERE to see the list!

There have been some questions about how the voting will work. See below for a brief explanation:

First round of voting: 7/8 to 7/12
All stories nominated and validated will participate of Round 1. Readers will vote for their top 10 favorites under each category.

Short list of Final Nominations: 7/14
As voting closes, we will tally the data and the top 10 stories will be then reviewed by our Panel of Judges. This validation will check for punctuation, grammar and spelling. In addition we will validate match to category.

Final voting: 7/22 to 7/26
The top 10 stories then go up for final vote by the readers.

Winners announced: 7/28

The response to The Indies has been spectacular, beyond what we expected. Thank you to all that nominated!

We are thrilled to publish the list of the nominated stories that have been validated. This list consists of 774 stories that were validated for review count. We had an outstanding 600 confirmed users participate during the nomination period. Again, we are super excited with the response so far!!

Please click HERE to view the list of validated stories.

We will now work on letting all the authors know of their nomination and making sure all these stories fit the category they were nominated for. Not a small feat considering the volume of stories that we are working with. For this reason we have also decided to amend our schedule as follows.

List of nominated fics posted: 7/1
First round of voting: 7/8 to 7/12
Short list of Final Nominations: 7/14
Final voting: 7/22 to 7/26
Winners announced: 7/28

The two rounds of voting will allow all of you to help narrow down the list of fics that will go to the final voting. Our judges will review this short list of stories to ensure they meet the rest of our criteria, but ultimately it is up to the readers to decide who gets on the short list, and who ultimately wins.

Thanks again and happy reading!!

Due to the technical difficulties we had on Tuesday, we have extended the nominations for The Indies until tomorrow. If you haven't done so, please submit your nominations.

Remember that nominations must be confirmed in order to be counted when we roll up the numbers. You should have received an email to confirm your nominations. Please email us if you had issues receiving this email. Once nominations close we can not help you confirm yours.

If you tried to nominate stories and received an error message the email you received is invalid. Please go back in and re-submit your picks.

Also, The Indies can also be found on Twitter. We have been updating our progress. Follow us at: @TheIndiesTwific

Due to the technical difficulties we had on Sunday, we have extended the nominations for The Indies until tomorrow. If you haven't done so, please submit your nominations.

Remember that nominations must be confirmed in order to be counted when we roll up the numbers. You should have received an email to confirm your nominations. Please email us if you had issues receiving this email. Once nominations close we can not help you confirm yours.

Also, The Indies can also be found on Twitter. We have been updating our progress. Follow us at: @TheIndiesTwific

The issues have been resolved! The submit button in the nomination page has been re-enabled. You can now continue to use that page to submit new or edit existing nominations.

Thanks a lot for your patience!

We are experiencing technical difficulties with the nomination page. We are aware of the problem, and we will be working throughout the day to fix it. We will continue to update the Homepage with any updates. At this point we expect to extend nominations to account for the time lost to technical problems.

Thanks a lot for your patience!

Remember that you have until June 23 to send in your nominations. The response so far has been excellent! We are very busy doing the 1st round of validation to the stories nominated. During this validation we are ONLY checking for compliance with review counts rules. Please click HERE here to see a preliminary list of the stories we have received so far that have passed this initial validation.

Very important - nominations are cumulative!! If a story appears on the list, it means that it has received at least one nomination, and the more nominations it receives, the more likely it is to make it to the next round. Help your favorite stories by nominating them. Top stories move on to the next round!

Remember that there will be an additional round of validation prior to voting to check for content and rules compliance. Once we close nominations we will tally all the nominations and the top stories will go through the next round of validations. Please visit our RULES/SCHEDULES page for more details.

Do you have questions about what each category means? Please click HERE to read the descriptions of each category. You can also find this information from the Rules/Schedule section of the website.

Please go to the Nominate page to submit your choices. Remember, only 1 nomination form will be accepted per valid email address.

Nominations will open on Tuesday, June 16 by 9 PM ET and will continue through June 23 at midnight. You may nominate one story per category, you can participate in as many categories as you want. Only one nomination form will be accepted per user.

Welcome to the summer edition of The Indies awards! We are very excited to bring you the first round of The Indies awards. For this session the calendar will be as follows:

• Site Live: June 11, 2009
• Nominations Open: June 16-23
• Voting Open: July 6 - 13

Please visit our Rules/Schedule page to understand the purpose of the awards and the methodology we'll follow. Also take a moment to Meet The Team that will be helping us during this session. Don't forget to visit our Friends & Affiliates page!