But wait, that’s more money. More money is good, right?

Usually, but not always. Joan Vinge (unfortunately best-known now as ex-wife of Vernor Vinge, despite her considerable talent) received, to the best of my imperfect recollection, $80,000.00 advance for the next novel after The Snow Queen, written in 1980, won “the big one” (i.e. Hugo for Best Novel).

$80,000.00 advance is big in 2008, but was huge circa 1981. Sadly, her next novel did not earn out. It was hard for her to sell the novel after that one. Publishers would not advance $80,000.00 again, or half that, after the bad profit/sales figures. Her agent felt that it would not do to crawl, hat in hand, begging for a small advance, just to get the next book published.

There’s more to the story, but I’ll leave it at that. Corrections/amplifications by others always accepted gratefully.

But congrats, John. I’m looking forward to reading “The Last Colony.”

So you might not get to have so much fun answering reporters’ questions if you win after all. Or, more precisely, you might not get to have *that* kind of fun. You could well get the kind of fun that comes from sharing a celebration in a broader arena.

That is not such good news to the 99.476% of Sci Fi readers that are not members who want to participate.”

$50 does seem like a lot but a while back I found a way to put it into perspective:

Buying a membership so you can nominate five novels published last year sets you back less than buying two novels published last year. Granted, that’s a sad commentary on the price of books but we all spend far more than $50 on them anyway.

In most cases, the core group of people nominating and voting are pretty much the same year to year.

That’s true. There are something around 6000 people eligible to nominate in any given year, and less than 10% of them nominating. For a historical perspective, see this article which does statistical analysis on the nominating and voting figures through 1999 by the late George Flynn. Alas, nobody has gone back and updated the article since then.

I do note that in 2006, the Star Wreck: In the Perkinning got a few votes for Dramatic Presentation. That was a fan film that was not in English. Imagine the complaints there would have been if that had made the ballot!

Some, I think, but probably not as many as those who complained when “Gollum’s Acceptance Speech at the 2003 MTV Movie Awards” won BDP Short in 2004. And for that matter, I didn’t hear a lot of complaints about the the two live performances from the 2005 Worldcon being nominated for BDP Short in 2006 (“Lucas Back in Anger” and “Prix Victor Hugo”).

Also, note that not all ballots would necessarily have nominations in all categories.

Denvention Three has updated the Hugo Nominations List to include the number of ballots cast in each category. Of course, a ballot is cast if someone has at least one nomination in that category. Few people use all of their nominations in all categories.

When the final statistics come out after the Hugo Awards are announced in August, you’ll be able to see the more detailed breakdown.

If you do lose, you should jump up on stage and grab the mic, like ODB.

“Yo… I paid a lotta money for this suit.”

Upon reading the Hugo website is looks to be (and someone correct me if I am wrong) that you can only nominate if you are a Worldcon or WSFS member. But the good news is if you pay 50.00 to become a member then you to can nominate!!

That is correct. Join the current Worldcon as at least a supporting member and you get the right to nominate and vote on the Hugo Awards, vote on Worldcon site selection, and nominate on next year’s Awards.