Finally, 4 years after I started blogging, I have won an award! I have won the Best Book Review at AvantGarde Bloggies Awards for my review of Bitter Chocolate. First and foremost a BIG thanks to Poonam and her team of judges and designers for organizing this award. If any of you out there think that running an online awards is a simple matter, you really need to read this post about the process that was followed – from nomination phase right up to the polls phase. Hats off to the team!
The next round of thanks goes out to those of you who voted for me since you are the ones who made me winner :)
Congratulations to all the winners and runners-up. But more importantly – congrats to all those who made the final shortlist. Remember – being shortlisted is in itself an achievement since your post would have undergone scrutiny from some of India's topmost bloggers. The polls were merely a measure of one's popularity/network than of the quality of the post itself.
Don't agree with that last sentence? Check the percentages of votes that each post polled in the Best Book Review category. You will see that 3 out of the 6 did not get any votes at all. I suppose this is either because the authors were unaware they had been nominated; or that they simply did not publicise it. I, on the other hand, put up the link on twitter, facebook, my blog, gtalk status requesting people to vote. Further, although I did persuade my readers to read the various entries before voting, I do not know how many actually did that. In fact, I am pretty sure there were several who voted for me without even reading my post!
Bottom-line: All the shortlisted posts were winners in their own rights. Congratulations to each and every one of those bloggers.
It goes without saying that this award spurs me to do better and to improve the quality of my blog. Let's hope that this motivation is translated into the real thing on the blog :)
