Australian Writers Centre launches Best Australian Blogs competition
The Australian Writers’ Centre will this week launch the Best Australian Blogs Competition.
The announcement:
The Australian Writers’ Centre has announced the return of the annual Best Australian Blogs Competition. The 2013 competition will launch Thursday 28 February. There is over $18,000 worth of prizes including cash, writing courses and books to be won.
Last year, the national competition received 1,024 entries. There were over 17,000 votes cast in the People’s Choice Round. Competition coordinator Rose Powell said: “The competition almost doubled in entries between its first [570 entries] and second year. We’re looking forward to another big competition as the Australian blogosphere has grown and strengthened considerably in the last year.”
The 2012 winner, Eden Riley, is now a full time blogger and regularly speaks about blogging at conferences, and with marketers and media. Riley blogs about family, life, and social issues.
In 2013, there will be five category winners, from which the overall winner will be selected. There is also a People’s Choice Award round, and five special awards for outstanding posts and potential.
Powell said: “The Australian blogosphere is a big, vibrant place where thousands of stories are told every day. The awards are structured to represent that diversity. We don’t judge blogs on traffic, statistics or monetisation strategies because we’re interested in voices, insights and the quality of writing.”
The five categories are:
• Commentary to be judged by Greg Jericho, author and social commentator
• Personal/parenting to judged by author and blogger Kerri Sackville
• Lifestyle/hobby to be judged by veteran editor and publisher Marina Go;
• Words/writing to be judged by Brandon Van Over, managing editor and Random House; and
• Business to be judged by Flying Solo founder Robert Gerrish.The competition is an initiative of the Australian Writers’ Centre (formerly the Sydney Writers’ Centre). This is the third year of the national competition.
The Australian Writers’ Centre is also pleased to announce that Random House has signed on as a supporter and sponsor for the 2013 competition. The overall winner will receive $1,500 of online or face-to-face writing courses, $1000 in cash and $500 worth of books from Random House. They will also have the opportunity to talk to Random House about publishing opportunities.
“We’ve been saying for years that the blogosphere is a rich mine of writers that publishers need to be tapped into, so it’s wonderful to welcome such an outstanding publisher to the competition,” said Powell.
Brett Osmond, Random House Marketing and Publicity Director ANZ said: “We’re delighted to be supporting the Best Australian Blogs Competition. There is unquestionably a high level of talent within this community, and it’s exciting to be part of such an innovative concept. At Random House we support bloggers and look forward to engaging with many more through this opportunity.
Key dates
• Entries open 28 February.
• Entries close 28 March at 5pm.
• The People’s Choice Award round launches on 28 March at 530pm. While this round is not compulsory, about 85% of entrants in the 2011 and 2012 competitions chose to take part in this round.
• Finalists will be announced 23 April. Winners will be announced 1 May.The official hashtag for the competition is #bestblogs13.
Source: The Australian Writers Centre press release
