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 Hi everybody,

Today we are going to go through two things everybody who enters wants to know about:

- How many books were entered?
- Feedback

So, in regards to how many books were entered in the 2024 award, see below.

Category 1 Pre-School Picture Books
Opt. 1 - NO feedback from the judging
10
Opt. 2 - WITH feedback from the judging
36

Category 2 Books for 6 – 8 Year Olds
Opt. 1 - NO feedback
21
Opt. 2 - WITH feedback
90

Category 3 Books for 9 – 12 Year Olds
Opt. 1 - NO feedback
16
Opt. 2 - WITH feedback
71

Category 4 Books for Teenagers
Opt. 1 - NO feedback
13
Opt. 2 - WITH feedback
58

Category 5 Books for Adults (fiction)
Opt. 1 - NO feedback
32
Opt. 2 - WITH feedback
204

Category 6 Books Adults (non-fiction)
Opt. 1 - NO feedback
14
Opt. 2 - WITH feedback
102

Category 7 Audio Books for Children/YA
Opt. 1 - NO feedback
25
Opt. 2 - WITH feedback
10

Category 8 Audio Books for Adults
Opt. 1 - NO feedback
31
Opt. 2 - WITH feedback
14

A vast majority of awards won't tell you all of this, but we think it's important to be totally transparent. Three things of particular interest in the stats this year. Category Two is surprisingly popular; usually it's half this number. And secondly, as you will have seen, Category 5 is very popular (it always is), which is why we will have double the number of gold, silver and bronze medal winners in this category. Thirdly, don't forget, the number of books in a category will not affect your chance of being a finalist as EVERY book awarded OVER 25 out of a possible 35 is a FINALIST.

FEEDBACK
As you will have noticed from the stats, a VAST MAJORITY of the authors/publishers pick Opt. 2 (WITH feedback from the judging). To be perfectly honest, the feedback is by far the best part of The Wishing Shelf Awards as it's far more comprehensive than any other award offers - if they even offer any feedback at all!
We will be sending out feedback to ALL the NON-FINALISTS who picked Opt. 2 during the month of March, starting the day we announce the finalists on 1st March. We will be sending out ALL the FINALIST/WINNER feedbacks after we announce the winners at the beginning of April. Every book entered in the award is read and judged by 15 of our readers!

The feedback will include the following:
1. A star rating
2. A score out of 10 for editing, content and writing style (a possible total of 30)
3. A score out of 5 for cover design
4. Of the 15 readers, how many of the readers:
- would read another book by this author.
- thought the cover was good or excellent.
- felt it was easy to follow.
- would recommend this book to another reader to try.
- felt the author’s strongest skill was ‘plotting a story’. This will be different for non-fiction books.
- felt the author’s strongest skill was ‘developing the characters’. This will be different for non-fiction books
- felt the author’s strongest skill was ‘writing style’.
- felt the pacing was good or excellent.
- thought the author understood the readership and what they wanted.
5. Individual comments from the readers.
6. A Catchy Quote to help you to market your book and future books.

After the authors have read the feedback, they can then decide if they wish us to post it on Goodreads and Bookbub for them. We will also show them how to post it as an Editorial Review on Amazon using Author Central. So, if you picked Opt. 2, you will be getting a rare glimpse into what 'real' readers (15 of them) think of your book.

All the best - and a Happy New Year to you all!

Regards,

Edward Trayer (and The Wishing Shelf gang)

Hi everybody,
I thought, this month, we'd hear from 1 of our readers; just for fun. Enjoy!
Edward

Hi, my name is Douglas. I live in South London in the UK. I have my own IT company which has been running for over twenty years. I love playing tennis, travelling and, most of all, reading. I started volunteering for The Wishing Shelf Awards 6 years ago. Since then, I have read (and mostly enjoyed) hundreds of books entered in TWSA. I tend to go for thrillers (preferably with broken protagonists) and romance - yes, I admit it, I'm 64 and I'm a romantic at heart.

I love helping out at TWSA. Why? Well, firstly, I can pick the books I want to read/judge from the list of books Edward and his staff send me. So I'm not forced to read/judge a genre I don't know/don't like. Secondly, it's fun! :) Every month, I meet up with other TWSA readers based in London, and we discuss the books, the finalists, and the winners - and we drink wine too, which is very important when discussing books! And thirdly, I feel as if I'm helping the authors just a tiny bit by providing them with feedback. It might not always be want they want to hear, but it's always honest as I know TWSA don't edit it in any way.

I'm planning to keep on helping out at TWSA for as long as I can make out the words on the page. It's been wonderful watching this small awards grow and seeing how much Edward and his 3 staff love the work they do. Having published a few books myself many, MANY years ago, I know the independent publishing industry is full of cowboys and scams. It's so refreshing to find a book award which is not just in it for the money, but wants to help authors be the best they can be. I just wish it'd been running when I was publishing my books back in the 1990s.

The very best of luck to everybody who's entered the 2024 awards. I can promise you every book entered is read by lots of avid readers - they might love your book, they might not, but they'll always read it cover to cover and the feedback they offer you will be honest. And, trust me when I tell you, there are not many awards out there who offer that.

Cheers,
Doug