Watch for Your Bouchercon Ballot

Bouchercon board member-at-large John Purcell contacted me the other day, asking if I could alert folks who were on hand for 2014’s “world mystery convention” in Long Beach, California, or have registered for this coming October’s event in Raleigh, North Carolina, to the imminent distribution of Anthony Award ballots. Those ballots will be sent via e-mail this year, and convention organizers want to be sure recipients keep their eyes open for them. Here’s the press release explaining how things will work:

To all Bouchercon attendees:

If you were registered for the Long Beach Bouchercon last year, or the one upcoming in Raleigh, you will be receiving ballots in a day or so (Saturday, Feb. 28) to nominate books and stories for the 2015 Anthonys to be awarded in Raleigh in October.

They are trying something new, and testing the process for future Bouchercons, using a survey site called SurveyMonkey to send and collate the nominations. Those who have attended past Bouchercons may be familiar with the surveys you received afterwards. (Some of you may have opted out of surveys, and if so, you won’t receive the ballot unless you opt back in.)

However, the links to the ballots are being sent via e-mail, and e-mails being what they are, it will be inevitable that many won’t receive them because of spam filters, firewalls, and other reasons. So if you can set your e-mail [preferences] and servers to allow mail from SurveyMonkey (www.surveymonkey.com) or Bouchercon or Anthony Ballots, or just check your spam traps, that will hopefully cut down on undelivered ballots.

If you want some further info, and a sneak peak at the ballot worksheet, check out http://www.bouchercon.info/process.html.

Remember, you are all members of Bouchercon, and the related success of the Anthonys, being fan-based awards, are directly related to your participation.

Happy nominating, and thank you!

One final bit of information, picked up from the main Bouchercon site: “If you do not receive your e-mail from SurveyMonkey by 6:00 p.m., Sunday, March 1, please e-mail B.G. Ritts with your name and whether you were at Long Beach or are registered for Raleigh. If registered at both, you will only receive one ballot.”