I'm assuming that the purpose of going for a Hugo is to get publicity and increased readership for HPMOR. If I'm mistaken-- possibly the point is that having a Hugo award is Really Cool-- then going for the win in a less important category would make sense.
I've been in fandom since the early seventies, and it seems to me that people talk about the Best Novel a lot more than Best Fan Writer.
I may be biased, but I think Fan Writing is very much a sub-culture within the sub-culture.
To be fair, even print sf is minuscule compared to tv, movies, and comics. From yet another angle, fanfic has become a huge thing by fannish standards, but I think it's something of a separate branch compared to the sort of fan writing (typically essays, I think, rather than fiction) which gets a Hugo.
If I'm mistaken-- possibly the point is that having a Hugo award is Really Cool-- then going for the win in a less important category would make sense.
I suspect the real logic is: having a Hugo award is Really Cool, having a Hugo for best novel is Even More Really Cool, and Eliezer isn't the type of person to settle for Really Cool in that situation.
The new discussion thread (part 15) is here.
This is a new thread to discuss Eliezer Yudkowsky’s Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality and anything related to it. This thread is intended for discussing chapter 82. The previous thread passed 1000 comments as of the time of this writing, and so has long passed 500. Comment in the 13th thread until you read chapter 82.
There is now a site dedicated to the story at hpmor.com, which is now the place to go to find the authors notes and all sorts of other goodies. AdeleneDawner has kept an archive of Author’s Notes. (This goes up to the notes for chapter 76, and is now not updating. The authors notes from chapter 77 onwards are on hpmor.com.)
The first 5 discussion threads are on the main page under the harry_potter tag. Threads 6 and on (including this one) are in the discussion section using its separate tag system. Also: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13.
As a reminder, it’s often useful to start your comment by indicating which chapter you are commenting on.
Spoiler Warning: this thread is full of spoilers. With few exceptions, spoilers for MOR and canon are fair game to post, without warning or rot13. More specifically: