Do's and Don'ts: Style Tips for Night Owls

It's taken some time, your lifestyle wasn't very accepted for a long time. But now everything's starting to change and it's time to get your groove on. You've been waiting for this opportunity, to get out there, be yourself and find a tasty thing to spend your nights with. There's just one problem: you look like this.

The pale skin, the bad hair, the clothing being about a century out of fashion - you've got some problems. And, even if you're more accepted in today's society, those problems at a little hard to get past if you don't approach it right. You've made the decision: it's time for a makeover.

Let's try not to screw it up, huh?

Clothes

The thing that you probably have the biggest problem with (besides some obvious problems mentioned below) is going to be your wardrobe. You've been out of circulation for a while, not quite up on the game. It's understandable, until recently you would have been stoned or burned at the stake for showing up in public. But the times are a changing, so should your wardrobe.

DON'T: think "retro" applies to everything old

If your date's grandfather would have been wearing your clothes, you may have some chance at them being fond of the retro look and thinking that you're just being stylish, especially with the vampire culture crossing over with goths from time to time.

But if your clothes look like something that their great grandfather might have worn, or their great great grandfather, you've gone too far. And further? Don't even ask. Put it away, you're not a pirate.

DO: try to appear casual

You're trying to look normal, so how about going to a normal store? Find something comfortable, something that they wont think looks too awkward and just try to be yourself.

But you need to be careful, try not to wear any clothes with colors that might wash you out (more than you already are). Darker colors give you some contrast, which is always a plus, but lighter clothes may look a little odd.

Skintone

We're all painfully aware that you don't get a whole lot of sun. When you go out, you could practically disappear against whitewall. And while being that fair skinned isn't necessarily a bad thing, it doesn't exactly look healthy, especially since you have all the curves of a piece of broken glass.

DON'T: Go for the spray tans.

Since you can't get out for a day in the sun like other people, some people would consider alternatives to get that healthy glow. Makeup, tanning booths and spray-tans are all relatively common. Unfortunately, for someone like you, the amount of makeup required would be absurd and tanning booths come with some health concerns you should be wary of.

Of course, this leaves the spray-on tan. There's a lot of methods for it, the spray booths, the tan in a can, some that you rub on. But in the end, one thing is common between all these methods: They will not look natural on you.

In fact, given your natural tone, by the time you reach anything resembling an actual color you might as well just start bar hopping the 10 blocks around the nearest chocolate factory.

Or congress.

DO: be proud of what you've got.

Pale skin is in! Turn on the TV, find some of your kind and realize that they're all flaunting their natural alabaster tone! And it really works for just about everyone!

Men:

Women:

Undecided:

And look at them, they're all working it for all they're worth! You can do it too after adjusting a few other parts of your style. First, let's worry about the face, and that means proper framing and drawing attention away from what could be a rather interesting skull shape. For that, we need to focus on...

Hair

Your hair, it has some problems. Look in the mirror, when's the last time you had it styled? Was the barber that did it also your surgeon? Did the pole outside have bloody rags wrapped around it? It may be time to update.

DON'T: blindly follow the fads

One of the things that's really gotten popular among people like you is to follow the person who started the recent swell of popularity for your people. I mean, how can you not? He's made your lifestyle trendy for people who would have condemned you before.

But, let's be honest, even if some people think the hair works for him (and not everyone does), while you may think you look like this:

You probably look more like this:

Hell, his hair doesn't even work for him most of the time.

DO: find something appropriate for your bone structure

What you do with your hair, in the end, is important only because of what it does or doesn't do for the general area around your head. Or, to make it easier to understand, you need to make sure it fits the shape of your head.

Experiment with the hair until you've achieved a look that works for you. You may even want to try some colors, though beware, some brighter colors will look a bit strange with your skin tone, so take care not to go too extreme with it.

And, for the love of god, wash it.

Teeth

This part is probably on your mind a lot. You're worried they're going to be upset about your teeth. It's a valid concern, though some would say that it could be worked past. One thing that you'll definitely want to be certain of is that you do not do anything with your teeth that you, or your date, are uncomfortable with.

DON'T: Sharpen them

This really doesn't require too much explanation. Just say no.

DO: make them look nice

There are a lot of methods to making this work. Many of the dental products out there for the average person will probably do you some good, whitening will make even the most intimidating smile look lovely.

And, as a final note on the subject, if you can afford it and you're unsure if you're confident enough to smile in public.



Consider dental bonding!

Next time, dating tips! This article is brought to you by Alters United in an effort to promot Alter/human unity. If you liked this article, please show your support, buy my book or promise not to be involved in the eventual race war between the various human subspecies.

Pirates vs Ninjas: SOPA, PIPA and ACTA

Sometimes, I'm made painfully aware that, as a US citizen, I might be stuck in some sort of magical bubble that prevents facts from reaching through. This isn't to say I'm ignorant of what's around me, I stay fairly well informed despite the media's attempt to do otherwise. I'm just saying sometimes certain things happening in foreign countries will not quite be included in the "what's around me" part of that statement. Every once in a while, certain world events will slip by unnoticed like a ninja and catch me off guard.

See, one of the things that I've observed for some time is that the US has been in two wars for a while. I don't mean "wars" in the sense of "Iraq" and "Afghanistan" because those were just two fronts of the same war - "The War On Terrorism". But there's a second war that's been pretty aggressively fought lately: The War On Piracy. All forms of piracy, from guys in speed boats to New Zealanders who store some files for people for a fee.

Well today, I spotted the ninja.

We're all very aware of the struggles with SOPA and PIPA that took the internet by storm for several months, especially in the last few weeks when the whole damn internet managed to say in one united voice "fuck off" to the man. This was a moment of pride for many of us, including myself. We're still talking about it, even in the media where we get gems like Bill Maher saying "all people really wanted to do was steal". This from a man who readily smokes pot and declares it on national television, mind you. But we're still in the afterglow of our victory and it's going to be on our lips for a while.

And, seeing as I'm here, I might as well put in my two cents on the topic. SOPA dying was like overthrowing a dictator before they could be put into power. It's not that I approve of uncontrolled piracy: in fact it would probably bite me in the ass. As a self-published author I'm in a precarious position where the honor system is the only thing keeping people from turning me inside out. Many popular authors have had it happen to them in the past. Leaked manuscripts have even caused enough damage that official releases were shelved for books that, likely, could have made a tremendous profit anyway. So I'm not completely desensitized to piracy.

Despite Disney's out of character attempts to make it look cool

With friends in animation, game design and soon to be film; I know people who are impacted by piracy all the time. The thing is that there's long been a method of control over a lot of these on the internet. The DMCA was never perfect, but it gave the corporations a chance to control their content and people a chance to fight back if it was unfair. If the DMCA was a tazer, SOPA was a Desert Eagle. So, yeah, I'm glad it failed, even if I may someday find myself being pirated.

And, I have to admit, it felt good. With the other things that have gotten past people lately, like the passing of the NDAA with some nasty provisions intact, it feels good to win one for once.

But then today I realized that they kind of threw the fight. You see, after years of being negotiated in secret, the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, SOPA's international cousin, is apparently getting pretty damned close to passing. So close, in fact, that Poland's taking the same steps recently taken to fight SOPA and PIPA: they're blacking out parts of their internet.

Typically, this kind of thing actually goes unnoticed by the US because "it doesn't effect us". Sadly, this is where the "Ninja" part comes in. See, while the EU is still fighting over this whole thing, Obama signed the ACTA treaty already. And while it hasn't exactly ended the internet, no one's exactly sure what it actually -does-. Due to what little has actually been negotiated and worked on in public view, we really only know a fraction of ACTA's true scope. In fact, when asked for the treaty's terms through the Freedom of Information Act, the White House said that it was a matter of "national security".

"Sir, I'm hearing someone streaming My Little Pony. Should we prepare the Anti-Brony Drone?"

But what has been studied by the people shows that ACTA is just as dangerous as SOPA. In fact, some would say, it could be even more draconian in the fact it doesn't just cover the internet. ACTA, due to the fact it's about all forms of counterfeit, stretches to real world objects just as much as online. The specifics of this aren't entirely clarified, due to the secrecy of the whole thing, but one interpretation that I've encountered even stated that this could stretch to cosplay of all things.

No, seriously, cosplay. Because, clearly, those people are pirates.

Somali Pirates: Seen here being arrested for ripping off South Park

And as for online? There's provisions in the treaty that are supposed to actually force internet companies to spy on the activities of their users. So, obviously, if this has already passed, it's not acceptable. Fortunately, there's several rays of hope.

First and foremost of these rays of hope: it's a treaty and can only be enforced so far as each country's laws will allow it to be. President Obama, having signed onto ACTA already, has probably tried to slip this past people without contest and put it into law. But, the joke's on him, since in the United States ACTA is illegal and wouldn't be able to stand in court. Why? Well, while the constitution grants the President the power to sign treaties and trade agreements as part of foreign policy, a responsibility of the executive branch, he's got no control over copyright law without the power of congress. And, despite ACTA calling itself a trade agreement, it's specifically part of copyright and patent law.

The second of these rays of hope is that the EU still hasn't officially pulled the trigger on this thing. Like I said, Poland is protesting it as we speak. I'm aware that it being legally toothless here in the US might not mean people here care about it, but the devil you know is better than the devil you don't. We as a society stepped up to tell the man off about one of their attempts to put the squeeze on our rights. And ACTA, existing as the shadowy beast it is now, cannot be allowed to pass.

Even if you're not European... even if you're someone who might want to prevent piracy for self-preservation...



Tell "the man" off.

Inherent BS: Word Count

Let's face it, it's impossible to escape the fact that we live in a world where "too long; didn't read" is, itself, too long to be bothered with. The audacity of being so lazy you have to reduce an incomplete sentence into just letters can leave the mind boggling. In the next few years there's little doubt we'll be seeing the semi-colon go bye bye too. And, yes, my lack of faith in the internet's tolerance of the English language is that strong. And I'm a novelist.

So, clearly, I'm also fucked.

And that's actually the consensus from the industry, more or less. You look around long enough for writing advice and you'll inevitably come to one piece of advice that always pops up: Keep it short - the smaller, the better.

I'm not just talking about being "concise", I mean length, overall. The thing that writers and publishers have the least confidence in is the reader's attention span. It's easy to mistake the fact someone prefers television to prose as a sign their brains just can't stay focused very long. It's also easy to mistake people spending time on the internet as a sign they can't focus on just one thing at a time anymore. Hell, there's been studies about this.

But I know for a fact that I've seen the opposite is true. I've watched people, myself included, go to Wikipedia to look up a single fact and come back 3 hours later wondering how they (or myself) ended up researching every facet of something they had no intention of looking up in the first place. You've probably done it too. And it's not just Wikipedia and people with normal attention spans. I've actually watched a man with ADHD spend hours on random image websites, even long after it stopped giving him new material. So, if someone like that can have that kind of laser focus, that leaves us with an uncomfortable truth. In the end, it's about whether or not your material was considered "worth the time".

Many people worry about what their page counts are going to be. For publishers it makes sense because you have to deal with the costs of printing the thing. For writers, editors, agents and all of the rest? They believe, usually emphatically, that people just will not read a long manuscript or novel. It's actually so ingrained into people that even your eBooks apparently need to be shorter too despite the complete lack of overhead. It's usually included in the tips for making your book successful in any format. Yet, looking back over the last decade, I notice a trend in the big hits that do not agree with this at all.

Most major hits in the last ten to fifteen years have been longer than the average length of their competition. Harry Potter started out at average length with Philosopher's Stone clocking in at 76,944 words, which for a children's book was still actually long, but for a novel in general it's about average. But you know what happened? They became longer. By the time the series reached Order of the Phoenix the word count was coming in at 257,045 words. To give you an idea of scope for that: Crime and Punishment comes in at 211,591 words. A children's book is longer than Crime and Punishment. In fact, the standard, last I checked, was for an average of 250 words to be printed per page on an average novel. Do the math.

If anyone submitted that manuscript cold, it would have been rejected before it even passed the slush pile. You're always told to write shorter works and trim things down for the sake of brevity. And the thing everyone always says is that you just can't maintain someone's attention for that long. But, I'm sorry, Rowling's thousand page book would like to disagree with you. And the honest truth, the harsh truth, is that if they put your book down due to length - you fucked up.

Everything you write is going to be judged on how long you can hold someone's interest, not how many words actually hit the page. If your book is "too long", it wasn't actually because of the length, it was because somewhere along the line you wrote too many parts that just weren't worth being there. I recently had a conversation with someone about how they felt a movie was too long. When I looked up the time I found that it was almost a full hour shorter than a couple of films he watched repeatedly. Was it because the film was really too long, or just because it didn't hold his interest?

I think the answer is obvious.

So, for those of you out there who stress about word counts, wonder if the book is too long and concern yourself with the length more than the content - stop it, you're ruining your book. I tell everyone something I heard from several of the better writers of our time: write it until it's finished then worry about length when you edit.

And don't feel too bad about having to cut out some parts of the manuscript when you get to that point. You're catching it before it becomes a problem. So be glad you have the opportunity to stop yourself rambling in text. You really wouldn't have that ability any other time.



And, come to think of it, "tldr" is probably the lesser of evils.

And for those of you wondering if I put my money where my mouth is, check out my book, behold its word count and know that at least one person told me to shave off 20,000 words because "that's what sells"

A Word To Indies: Graphic Design And You

Today, I'm going to talk to you about coloring in the lines and not treating your books like kindergarten art projects.

After recent posts about publishing, self publishing and the direction I think the future should go in - I was starting to look for other topics to talk about. But as I was looking at my long To-Do list I realized that there were still things I needed to do that I've seen a lot of indies mess up. In fact, I've messed them up here or there myself. So if anyone's going to tell you this message, it should be one of your own:

You can't do everything on your own unless you learn what you're doing first.

Now this isn't to say that you have to shell out a lot of cash to someone for everything you don't know how to do. In fact, for most things that you're not 100% certain on, you can probably learn how to do it. But there's some things that you just cannot, under any circumstance, allow your inability to louse up. Specifically, for the purposes of this post: don't fuck up your cover.

I know that the saying has long been "You can't judge a book by its cover". But even if it's true, it's irrelevant because you do. Everyone judges a book by their cover and everyone has seen instances where a good cover can immediately draw your attention. You see, the cover is your first piece of advertising. Before they know who you are, before they know your work, they're going to know your cover. The cover is like a billboard for the shelves or the websites while shoppers pass by. If you have a good cover they're going to stop to look. And, while they will stop for a bad cover, the bad covers are usually laughed at, not flipped through.

Marketing is one of the hardest aspects of selling books and the cover is the first introduction most people have to your work. Even in an ad you'll usually include a picture of the cover, so it makes sense you would want it to be striking and instantly recognizable. As much as it pains me to say this, one of the best sets of covers I have ever seen belongs to... Twilight.

Love them or hate them, the books or the covers, you immediately know what they are from a distance. They're recognizable no matter how far away you're seeing them, so long as you're able to discern the shapes and colors. They're simple, elegant and have carefully chosen colors and fonts. The titles are almost invisible from a distance yet you'll immediately know what they are. For all that can be said about these books, good or bad, you cannot deny the fact the covers are solid.

But one of the major problems with making independent novels catch on is that there are some horrible covers out there. I understand - not everyone is a graphic designer and paying the professionals can be costly from time to time. Honestly, I can't tell you I know absolutely how to do it right. But what I can do is show you things I've seen that I know for a fact are wrong.

So, as just something of an experiment, let's create the cover of a generic vampire novel based on mistakes I have seen in the past. I could provide examples of everything I'm about to show you, but showing those would just be cruel to people who I know probably gave it their best. Just keep it in mind as I do this: no matter how ridiculous it may seem, I have seen it happen before.

So let's get started on fucking up a cover, shall we?

Screw-up 1: The overly plain cover

What's wrong?
This cover really says nothing about the book except the title. You may have seen some books with just the title and the author's name (and, by the way, you forgot your name), but those were classics. Classics don't need to market themselves anymore, their name is enough to make someone jump for them. Note, many of those can be leather bound or have metallic colored inlay... they are definitely not fighting for recognition anymore.

Good designer's thoughts
Really, this isn't the point to panic, you're just figuring the location of the title and really haven't done anything else yet. From here you need to consider the theme of the book and get ideas on ways you can convey something about the book to the reader. Maybe there's an object in the book of importance or a metaphor you can reach across. Find an image that fits in some way and then figure out what fonts will fit to the theme. Oh, and remember to put your name in too.

Bad designer's thoughts
Holy crap, there's nothing on there, I need any picture and fast. It has vampire in the title so I should put a vampire on. Maybe a sexy one. No, wait, sexy vampires are too common now, so I should probably get something that's different so that people don't think I'm ripping off the popular books. Oh, and red for blood because vampires and blood are connected. Yeah, I'm going to do that.

Screw-up 2: Clip Art and Conrast

What's wrong?
There's a couple of things wrong with this one, actually. First, remembering that this is going to be viewed either as a thumbnail or on a shelf, no one's going to actually be able to see what this is saying or what that picture is from a distance. Go ahead, back up from your screen until this picture is about the size of a thumbnail. Can you tell what it is anymore? The answer for most people is no, and the ones who do recognize it either have especially good vision or are just unable to forget what they saw in the first place. In fact, do the same with the Twilight covers earlier. Crazy, isn't it?

Second, when people do get a good look at it, your failed attempt to crop that picture from a larger photo is a clear sign that you are an amateur that either A) couldn't get picked up by a publisher or B) has sold so few books that you couldn't afford help. Neither one of these speaks well of your skills.

Good designer's thoughts
Still going to say this is time to back up and find your theme. The red and black color scheme can and has worked on covers before, you could probably find an angle on it related to your plot. Maybe you inverse the colors so that the black font stands out against a red background. You could even put a crest, silhouette or abstract image there in black too. Possibly you could add a third color in there for some extra contrast. Oh, and you still forgot your name.

Bad designer's thoughts
Ugh, the vampire in that picture is uglier than I thought it would be. It wont tell people what the story is about at all. I know, I'll tell them what it's about on the cover so they wont have to guess. And I need to put my name on it, I want them to know who wrote this, like how the professional author's names are the easiest part to read!

Screw-up 3: Running at the proverbial mouth

What's wrong?
Okay, this gives you a better idea of what the story is about. It has all of the same visual problems that the last one had with the picture in the center but no one is going to look at it and mistake it for what it is. Problem, however, is that they're still going to have to read the cover to know this and the first impression is, invariably, going to be the picture still. Oh, except for your name. They're going to know who to blame for that cropped picture in the center by name, for sure.

Good designer's thoughts
The text parts of this are... acceptable. You're not really helping anything but you're not really hurting them either. The size of your name isn't really going to do as much for you as you'd hope since the people who tend to do that are the people who sell books on name recognition alone and, if you had that kind of recognition, you wouldn't be making this cover yourself. Some people may tell you that you can trick people into thinking that you're a big name if you have a big name on the cover, but no one's going to be fooled if the picture in the center is still crappy.

Bad designer's thoughts
My name is taking up so much space that people are definitely going to see it now! And I've explained that it's a love story now so there's no chance they'll miss it. But now the title looks too plain. Maybe I should change the font. Oh, hey, I'll just decorate that part!

Screw-up 4: Font changes fix everything

What's wrong?
Same problems, new version, though the "blood" effect could almost be argued for on a better cover. It even frames the "subtitle" nicely if you look at it long enough.

Good designer's thoughts
Okay, let's ignore the font for a bit and consider the theme again. You're saying this is a love story but you've got a clearly ugly thing in the center. Maybe that's on purpose, like Cyrano de Bergerac with vampires. But, frankly, if this is Cyrano de Bergerac I still have no way of knowing this. All I know is that there's a badly cropped picture in the center and your font changes aren't distracting me from that. Also, there's officially no connection between the fonts... at all.

Bad designer's thoughts
This is still ugly, I don't understand. Maybe it just needs some color!

Screw-up 5: Lack of continuity

What's wrong?
Finding that the cover lacks in aesthetics, the typical amateur designer throws in colors to try to fix it. More often than not, people who are going down this road end up stopping right on this step and deciding this is the point where they'll publish. From a distance you can't really see the fonts, in fact, even up close you may sometimes struggle with it. The two images don't match at all and it's hard to tell if there's any theme here except vampires and lovers...though...lovers at sunset...congratulations because...

Good designer's thoughts
Oh my god, you found a theme! You've actually done it. Lovers at sunset, while kind of a twilight reference, could totally be what you're looking to convey here. Just one problem, not only have you not gotten rid of that damn cropped picture but he's now looking like a 9 foot tall creature of the night getting ready to eat those people mid coitus while they quietly tell each other to stop biting so hard.

He's standing out way too much, you have to fix it.

Bad designer's thoughts

Seriously? I've seen covers that look like all of the above (and, usually when they make these mistakes, much worse). I'm not saying that they have to be perfect, and with a few tweaks you can make even my attempts above look decent. But in the end you're going to reveal your status as an amateur if you start off with a bad base and then continue to try to gloss over it. If you're someone who has a cover with similar problems to the ones above, you need to step back and figure out what exactly you're doing. Not only that, but if you don't have the skills to do better without spending money - it's time to spend money.

I know, that concept sucks, but sometimes you have to do it. After all, for certain jobs...



Enthusiasm doesn't always make up for experience.

Speaking of covers and indies, I'm one of the silly folks that designed my own cover. I'm aware it's not the greatest, but I'd like to think I didn't commit any of the sins above and that it's recognizable from a distance. And, hey, if you want to avoid judging my book by my cover, go ahead and buy it.

Inherent BS: Luck and Entry Fees

Friday the 13th, an ominous day for most because of silly superstition and things no one really understands. The origins of the day have long been discussed and fails to have a satisfactory answer. The reasons rarely have any attachment to reality (or each other) and are usually the long form of "we picked it at random". In fact, here's a couple I always find amusing myself:

Friday itself is apparently an unlucky day, not for any specific reason but just because it's Friday and has been attached to dark events. Things like stock market crashes, crucifying Jesus and (possibly) the execution of the Knights Templar all happened on Fridays. And, of course, Black Friday is a day of rabid consumerism making the holiday season synonymous with bloodthirsty mobs of shoppers.

The number 13 is considered unlucky because, I shit you not, it's considered a combo-breaker. You see, the number 12 in numerology is supposed to be the "last" number. It's the number that apparently completes things like numbers of months and numbers on the clock. But adding one more just louses up the whole damn thing. And, alternatively, people believe having 13 people at a table will result in the death of one of the people sitting there because, y'know, they saw it happen once.

Of course this forgets that he probably ate with all of these people at least once before that and, if 12 is the number of completeness, Jesus was actually the odd man out... so obviously he had to go.

I've never believed in "luck" as a force of nature. As far as I've always seen it, luck is just what you call it when something happens due to probability that you, personally, didn't see coming. And since "luck" is not something you can coax for or against you and doesn't have a pattern you can observe (without jumping from "luck" to "probability"), I've never exactly counted on "luck" to do anything for me.

This is why I don't play the lottery.

And yet when I look around myself I'll find people counting rather excessively on luck and good fortune to make themselves successful. There's an inherent hope in people that some random chance is going to make things work out in their favor. People will take stupid risks for no gain because there's a small chance that you'll randomly stumble on a winning solution. This is especially true of writers... and I feel like I just saw someone taking advantage of that.

I said only a couple of posts back that one of the real burns of being an independent was that you're not considered for most awards. Most awards, after all, are determined by being involved with one of the larger guilds or associations and those typically have a requirement that you've been published or paid by someone other than yourself. This results in indies being excluded quietly from a lot of the more well known awards.

Surprisingly, I got an e-mail about an award I could qualify for.

This inspired me to do some research on how many awards I was eligible for and found that there was a nice list of them out there. I wont be retracting my statement because I don't feel like I've been proven wrong yet. Most of these awards are just as independent as the winners. But I will admit to feeling that it's a good sign, even if the e-mail itself had some details that irritated me.

I wont name names and I wont identify who exactly these people are. You see, I think I'd be safe in revealing who they are, and some of you reading this may have been contacted by them in the past. But I'm opting to keep them nameless and faceless because one of my advisers suggested I should take it a little easy and just stick to the what and not the who.

But what they did was something I feel just speaks so much to what I was talking about for the last couple weeks. You see, this award organization was informing me that I could be entered for consideration for their award if I were to pay them for the honor. And that, my friends, got me thinking.

I'm not against fees for the most part. Though I am cheap, I understand the value of entry fees, what they do and what they mean. Usually when an entry fee is required it's to cover the costs or to prove that the entrant is serious about their consideration. But who needs to prove they're serious about winning an award? Who honestly enters their work for consideration for an award they don't want to win? On the other hand, maybe there is a chance for people to submit a manuscript of entirely one word printed over and over across 400 pages.

This is really one of the reasons why it's so hard to get indies included into some other awards - fear of trolls. So, perhaps a flat fee or a reasonably priced category based fee could be argued for. But then we come to the "reasonably priced" phrase and choke on our tongues.

The people who sent out that e-mail apparently think the honor of even being considered for their award sits somewhere in the neighborhood of a hundred dollars per category. There are some lesser categories for lower fees that you can also enter. But after looking at the list of categories I found that there was a clear overlap for multiple categories in these fields. Essentially, you could increase your chances of winning something by increasing the number of categories you're considered for. This, essentially, would be why they would charge you per category and not have you enter with a flat fee: they intend for people to try to increase their odds.

I'm not saying that these people aren't a legitimate award, I looked them up and I know that they have been around for a while and some deserving people have won their award in the past. What I am saying is that this is sounding an awful lot like how you would approach an award if you were looking to capitalize on people's hope and belief in good fortunes and luck. I think we can do better, people, I really do.

Now, they make an argument in the e-mail that there are benefits to entering the competition because it included a party, stickers (no joke), and marketing potential. According to them, there's a lot of opportunity to market based on winning their award. And that was a fairly convincing argument until I saw that they had a category for "best marketing".

And, last but not least, they point out that the most important reason to enter is that you could win a medal and that the medal would count itself as great marketing too. After all, medals are something that will immediately get you noticed. Only, you know: how many people actually wear their medals outside the house? Well, other than me, I happen to have ten medals and a handful of plaques that say I'm the best ever and I wear those things outside constantly. You can hear me down the block, ringing and chiming like the illegitimate child of Mr. T and Michael Phelps.

But, you know what? I think I might be an exception to that.

So I'm not saying there's no benefit. I'm not telling anyone what to do (sort of). I'm not even telling you not to consider entering. What I am saying is that I think we can do better. To me, it just feels like a lottery or a contest rather than an honor. It feels like someone preying on people's belief in luck. And in the end, it's not magic...



It's just chance.