To mark the organization’s 50th anniversary, SFWA has partnered with Joe Monti, Editorial Director of Saga Press, and designer Michael McCartney to release all-new Nebula Award and Norton Award Nominee and Recipient Medals.
These medals will be for use by publishers and authors of all Nebula-nominated works.
Joe Monti explains:
As a former bookseller at the store and corporate level I can attest that winning a prestigious award always helps to sell a book. But what if the award gets announced and few know of it? The visibility of the Nebula Awards has struggled to reach a broader reading audience for years outside of the core community of science fiction and fantasy readers and professionals in the field; These medals will help change that.
One of the greatest book selling tools we have is award recognition. Or to put it another way: You put a shiny gold or silver medal on a book cover and it sells books!
Whether a book is just standing on a bookshelf or is a JPEG online, that award recognition means a tremendous amount to a potential reader, that award recognition is a self generating word of mouth campaign.
“It’s a great delight to witness the awards getting more of the visibility they deserve. The Nebula and Norton awards recognize the very best in the field, and it’s lovely to see a visual reminder of that in the form of these graphics,” said Cat Rambo, incoming SFWA President.
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It’s a good job, and certainly caught my eye before I even began reading this post!
But they’re hideous.
“It’s a good job, and certainly caught my eye”
“But they’re hideous.”
An example of the Baen book cover school of advertising?
Granted, the old logo was prettier, but it lacked immediate visual impact and wasn’t as neutral graphics-wise. And now being able to designate Nebula nominees is a bonus, marketing-wise.
Urm, I should correct myself – they’re “medallions”, not logos. There is a difference.
But hideous is still hideous.
The image is way too busy for its own good. And I think it needs a gold/silver Edge so that the whole circumference of the circle is the same color and pops out from the cover (because on blackish and other dark covers, the upped ends where part of the edge is black will kinda fade into the cover.
Now let’s see if they will get better the more I look at them…
(And yes – the Andre Norton ones already have that – was only talking about the Nebula ones)
In order for an award to mean sales, the prospective customers have to believe that the award means a superior story. That has not been the case with the Nebulas or the Hugos for many years. Baen on the cover is a better indicator of high quality than either of those awards.
“That has not been the case with the Nebulas or the Hugos for many years. Baen on the cover is a better indicator of high quality than either of those awards.”
For some readers.
For many others the reverse is true.
I like that you can distinguish between finalist and award winner. Not sold on the graphic but it’s less busy than the old logo so that is an improvement to my eyes
“That has not been the case with the Nebulas or the Hugos for many years. Baen on the cover is a better indicator of high quality than either of those awards.”
You people really should venture out of your bubble more often.
Well, it’s definitely an improvement on the old one. But that’s a heck of a lot of contrast going on. It looks fine on Annihilation, which has the same graphic punch to its cover, but I don’t know if it will read as well on other cover styles.