Summary: please nominate HPMoR:Podcast for consideration to the brand-new FanCast category.
The Hugo Awards, as many are probably aware, are awards given to outstanding Science Fiction/Fantasy works, as voted upon by the reading public. They work by letting anyone who attends the annual World Science Fiction Convention nominate & vote on their favorite works. The Hugos and the Nebulas are generally considered the two major awards of the SF/F genre.
Last year I suggested nominating HPMoR, which was complicated by the fact that it's not complete, is fanfic, and isn't "published" in the traditional sense.
However this year there is a Special Category called Best FanCast, defined as “Any non-professional audio- or video-casting with at least four (4) episodes that had at least one (1) episode released in 2011.” (There is an amendment to the WSFS Constitution pending ratification at Chicon 7 that would make Best Fancast a permanent category.)
This seems like a perfect fit for HP:MoR The Podcast.
If you are already participating in this year's Hugos or participated in last year's Hugos, you are eligible to nominate works. Please consider nominating it. A nomination could help bring knowledge of MoR to many more people, regardless of a win. And it's not terribly hard to get nominated, especially in these smaller catagories. Last year Fuck Me, Ray Bradbury was nominated to the final ballot in "Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form" with only 50 nominations.
If you aren't participating yet, well, there may still be a chance to sign up, depending on when you're reading this. Turns out the deadline for buying into the convention is 11:59pm 1/31/12. You can get a full ticket (admission to the con plus the voting packet) for $195, or simply buy a "supporting membership" for $50. The supporting membership only lets you nominate and vote - not attend the con - but it does get you a "voting packet" which is the full text of all the nominated novels, novellas, novelettes, and short stories (five nominees in each catagory) for free in multiple formats (.epub, MOBI, txt, and Word, I believe). If you buy a lot of SF anyway it's a decent deal, and you get to be a small part of SF history in the process. :) But it isn't an efficient use of money if you're simply nominating HPMoR, so this is really more of a request to those who are already nominating/voting anyway.
Links Recap:
To Nominate
To Register
Podcast in iTunes