StarShipSofa and Hugo nominations

So it’s time of year again when the awards season start opening up, allowing people to nominate stories, podcasts, films, magazines, what have you, for various awards. This time it’s the Hugo award, something that StarShipSofa won back in 2010.

Now, I obviously wasn’t editing the podcast at that point, but even today the thing is a big task to handle. We’re not a paying podcast, and we don’t profit either (in fact it actually costs me cash just for online storage to keep stories and recording safe). Not that it is about the money, of course, but it’s still a hell of a thing to manage, especially as I’m a full time student, have a part time job, and do my own writing in the meanwhile. There’s soliciting submissions, reading unsolicited submissions (you’d be surprised how many I get, and from big, big authors, too) getting the rights to the stories, contacting audio narrators, waiting for them to get back to me, listening to their recordings, working with them to improve their narrations, sorting out files, organizing each and every week’s line up, blah, blah, blah. First world problems and all that.

But you know what? I enjoy doing it. I really do, and I’ll continue to keep doing it for as long as I can.

So what’s the point of this? Well, if you are a listener of the podcast (and why wouldn’t you be?), and really enjoy the poetry, interviews, nonfiction, stories, articles, science news, and all that jazz that we have to offer, I’d encourage you to slot us in your Hugo ballot.

More details can be read here. I’m not legible to vote (I’m not sure if it’s very ethical, voting for the podcast you help run), but if you are, then please do vote for us, or anyone else who you feel deserves your vote. Be fair. There are some fantastic magazines out there, still running strong for decades.

But if you feel that we deserve your vote, then that’s cool as well. But foremost, my goal is to make this podcast the best it can be, for fans of science-fiction, by fans of science-fiction. To have big author, like the ones we’ve had on already such as Sanderson, Moorcock, Hamilton, Watts, Asher, Stross, Lindholm, Levine, Baker, Watson, Gaiman and dozens of others. To introduce new and fresh voices that have never hit big before. To give people countless hours of entertainment and take them to places that only science-fiction and fantasy can take them to.

That’s what I want to do. And I hope you’ll join me and the hundreds of others already on board.

– Jeremy Szal