By Edward Nawotka

In today’s editorial by Patti Thorn, co-founder of BlueInk Reviews — a platform for professional reviews of self-published books — she notes that the company has founded its own award program. “Our first BlueInk Best Book, for example, attracted the attention of three major publishing houses and one very prominent literary agent,” she notes, adding, “Not bad for a little novella that New York would have normally overlooked.”

Day-by-day self-published books are proving their worth in the marketplace. Debates about the quality of the work persist, but as venues like BlueInk reviews prove, there are gems to be mined from the raw overload of self-published titles. How long before they are considered for — and one of them is chosen — for a major award?

Anyone who has ever worked as a judge on a major book award knows the burden of considering the sheer number of titles from the established presses. Is it too much to ask that self-published titles be considered as well?

Let us know what you think in the comments.