FAQs - Authors Edition

Hey Swoony Authors!

We have been getting a lot of questions about the Swoony Awards so we decided it was time to do an FAQ post.

Does sharing promo posts help authors?

Yes! We notice an increase in votes every time an author creates their own promo post or shares one of our posts.

Can you tag authors in your posts?

We do our best to tag authors in our posts on social media. If you see your name in our post but you haven't been tagged, please reach out to us with your information so that we can tag you. 

How many books can an author have nominated each year? 

All of your books you've released during the year can be nominated.

How many nominations do I need to have to make sure my book can move forward into Round 1 (R1)?

Starting in 2025, all books moving forward into R1 voting MUST have a minimum of 10 nominations. But keep in mind, the more nominations you have for your books, the better chance you will have to move into the official voting rounds. 

How many books can an author have in the official voting rounds?

To make it fair for all authors, we only allow ONE book per author to move forward into the official voting rounds. Your book with the most nominations will be the one that we use. 

How are the official voting rounds done? 

We will take the top 10 books in each category from the nomination round, which is done throughout the year, and move them forward into R1 voting. After R1 is completed, we will take the top 5 books and move them forward into R2 voting. After R2 is completed, we will take the top 3 books and move them forward into R3, which is the final round. To make it fair to all authors, each voting round will start at zero. 

Why didn't my book make it into the official voting rounds when it was praised and talked about by both authors and readers in various groups?

Unfortunately, we can't add a book into the official voting rounds if it didn't have enough nominations throughout the year. The Top 10 books in each category will be moving forward into R1 voting. 

Is there any way you can tell me where my book is at so if I need more nominations to move forward into R1, I can get more?

Unfortunately, no. We literally go through every single nomination and every single voting round and remove A LOT of duplicate votes. By telling authors where they are, they will in turn tell the voters this is how many I need, and the voters who have already voted will go and vote again. It causes more work for us because there are literally hundreds of authors and thousands of nominations/votes. 

Why are there so many categories?

We want to be able to highlight as many authors as we can each year. The more categories we have, the more authors we can highlight. But it's hard to find a balance between too little or too many categories. This will vary from year to year depending on whether or not we have enough books for each of the categories.

What if you've put my book in the wrong genre? 

If at any point you see that we have your book listed in the wrong genre, please let us know so we can correct it. We can't read every book that has been nominated. We do our best to research each book but sometimes we have to go off what Amazon and reviewers have labeled it. 

If you don't see an answer to questions you may have, please reach out to us and let us know!