Sunday, March 15, 2009

Da Bwaha

Dear Author and Smart Bitches are Romance review sites where they talk about Romance and genre books. They hold a competition for the fans every year -- the melliflously-named Da Bwaha.

In Da Bwaha, folks pick the 2008 book they like best.
They also pick the book they think is going to win the competition.


This is two processes.
Separate processes.



(See the diagram to the right for the philosophical overview.)






Apparently in sports competitions there is a kinda bracket thingum to show eliminations in different rounds.




(see bracket to the right.
Daunting, isn't it?

This is used by jocks, though, so it cannot be too hard.)


Da Bwaha does this for books.
It is very clever of them.


Part One of Da Bwaha works like this:


Folks use a set of those brackets to guess which book is likely to be the more popular
when it goes mano a mano
against another other book.


(Last year I couldn't figure out how it worked. This year I figured it out.)


I am getting smarter and smarter.











If you want to enter the elimination tournament and take a guess as to who is going to win the popular vote, you go here.

You have to do this before Wednesday March 18, which is three days from now.

If you want to vote for the books you like
you have to register before March 18.
I think.

(Ahh ... you may have to switch to firefox and disable scripts and light a votive candle to make the site work. I know I did.)

Anyhow, when you finally get to the page to load -- which may work first shot, who knows? -- you go to the left column and pick your favorite from each of the pairs.

Your pick will just automatically show up on the next round competition
which is in a box just to the right.
Then you pick favorites in that second round box.

There are six rounds and you keep picking till you get to the end.

-- Then you go to the top right and put in your handle and your e-mail address.
-- Finally, you go down to the bottom of the page and click where it says, 'select picks'.

This allows you to move on to
(Remember, I told you there were two parts.)
Part Two:

which starts on March 19, which is next Thursday.

You will be able to pick the books you actually like.
That voting will take place here.

You have to register to do this. I don't know what the deadline for registration is. But I think it is March 18.


Here are the books



I would say that is a lot of books,
but they are all -- at least all the ones I've read -- great books.

(cough) I'm in there, about halfway down. (/cough)


Edited to add --

I just wanted to add something really neat that I just discovered about that list of books and writers above.

Bit of background: In lots of writer websites, if you click on the link you can go to Amazon and buy their book and the author makes a couple small coins of money.
Enough to take the kid out for a popsicle maybe.

Writers operate mostly on what is technically called 'a small profit margin' or 'no appreciable money at all', so the price of a popsicle is welcome.

When you put up a link to somebody's book, you can send folks to their website,
(and the author maybe ultimately makes a trickle more profit on their book,)
or you can send folks straight to Amazon,
(and you make the little trickle of profit.)

You see that list above?
Dear Author and Smart Bitches have linked to the author websites.

8 comments:

  1. How on earth do you pick from a list like that??? It's so long! I think I read a lot, and I've only read 7.5 of them.

    Thanks for the info. I'll check it out and vote for my favs out of the 7.5 that I'm qualified to vote on!

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  2. The ones you haven't read ... I think you do it with numerology.

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  3. I definitely fall on the one side, the inappropriate love side. With the contest, it's mostly guess work. I haven't read but one book in two of the categories.

    Spymaster's Lady, however, is winning the champion pick. No idea if that foretells anything.

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  4. I know the NwRE books, (so many lovely initials,)
    and the Historicals. If I haven't quite read them all, I plan to, which is almost as good.

    The other categories, I've only read one or two of the books. Sometimes none at all.

    I have a strong favorite in the GLBT category -- the latest Lord John -- and a choice of two favorite contemporaries.

    Beyond that, much guesswork is going on.

    I had lunch yesterday with Deanna Raybourn. This would be much more impressive if there hadn't been a dozen of us having lunch with her.

    (I can't say what it is, but I really like her last name ...)

    Anyhow, I told her she was on the list, which she had not known.

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  5. I love your diagrams! They make me snerk.

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  6. @ M --

    I have created snerk. My work here is done ...

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  7. Anonymous2:23 PM

    For books I haven't read, I'll be using the same sort of intuitive/idiosyncratic methodology I use when I enter the office "March Madness" pool. For example, "I once dated someone who went to (school in question), and he was a jerk," results in a vote for the other team. Other elimination criteria include an unpleasant time in the school's city or state, dislike of the school colors, and the like.

    Positive votes are elicited if a close friend graduated from said school, I like the name, etc. Trust me, my brackets usually have the same number of winners as those who study the teams.

    Obviously my criteria will have to be different here, but they'll be no less scientific. {g} The only sure thing is _The Spymaster's Lady_ wins all brackets.

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  8. Hi Annie --

    You are cool. (g) Thank you for TSL support.
    Most folks, I think, will not have read most of these books.

    My poor Spymaster's Lady will have to compete with only its cover and title to recommend it.
    It has its work cut out for it.

    As for my own picks ... there were some categories where I hadn't read ANY of the books.
    It looks like I don't read YA at all. Who knew?

    I was kinda floundering around for choices in some of the early contests. (jo shuffles her feet and looks embarassed.) I picked the book where I'd at least heard of the author.

    Or I'd read another book by her that I liked.

    Or the title sounded intriguing ...

    (I am sooo shallow.)

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