Stand Up to the Justice of Numbers. A Record of Participation in the Creative Awards

The submission period for the 2023 Creative Awards has ended, hasn't it? It seems like it was quite a lively event. After all, they say there were 70,000 submissions. 70,000! That's impossible to read through. I can only imagine how difficult it must be for the judges. Thank you for your hard work.

When this year's Creative Awards were announced, I honestly wondered if I should participate. I complained about it on Twitter at the time, but unlike the previous Creative Awards, they said they were adding reader voting to the first round of judging. Well, with no limit on the number of submissions and the ease of applying just by using a hashtag, a huge number of entries was to be expected (and indeed, 70,000 were collected!). I think it's an unavoidable rule to have some level of filtering based on reader likes and comments first. But when it was announced, I honestly thought, "What is this!"
The reason is that, not just on note but on social media in general, there are people who are dedicated solely to gathering followers. The number of followers is justice. I heard that when there was an open call for illustrators before, there was a controversy over a requirement that said "must have over 100,000 Twitter followers." In any case, there are people who live in a world where numbers are justice. I thought I wasn't one of them.

What I want isn't followers, it's fans.

Ah, that's a phrase you hear often.
When the rules for this Creative Awards were announced, I thought, "So note has also become a world where those who have been grinding for follower counts win." That's why I was thinking I might not even bother applying.

When this rule was announced, there were various reactions around me as well. "It's impossible because I have few followers," "Is this just a festival for popular note users?," "So it means people with many followers have the advantage after all," "If you're going to whine about the new rules, why not just not participate? I'm happy there are fewer rivals," and so on. Various opinions were flying around, to the point where the official account had to emphasize, "These are just guidelines!" It was quite chaotic.

In the midst of that, I exchanged opinions with various people and talked to them, and it suddenly occurred to me. Why am I submitting my novel to an open call while claiming that I don't intend to fight in a place where numbers are justice? Isn't it because I dream of commercial publication someday, no matter how many years it takes? Hey, hey, a person who wants to be commercially published saying, "What I want is not numbers, but fans"? That's laughable. If you don't sell, there's no way you can make it in the commercial world. The commercial world is exactly a battle of numbers. Things that don't look like they will sell aren't even published in the first place. What should you do to sell? First, you have to get it to a lot of people, right? How do you get it to a lot of people? You have to fight in the world of numbers.

Yes. I was using the excuse, "I don't want followers, I want fans," to run away from fighting in the world of numbers.

It was the moment my feelings and my resolve changed significantly. To begin with, I don't like standing out much. I have no desire to become famous, and I'm not ambitious. But I want the novel I wrote to become famous. I want a lot of people to read it. But the novel won't become famous on its own. Here, I, the writer, have no choice but to do my best myself. If I write something interesting, will people naturally read it? That's naive, so naive. Being interesting is an absolute requirement, but there are many other things that must be done besides that.

Of course, I have no intention of selling my soul to numbers. I don't want to gather followers or likes by distorting what I want to write. Naturally, I don't think that method would last. But I realized that I need to do more of the promotion and self-promotion that I haven't been doing properly until now. I need to make the titles and the content when sharing on Twitter catchy and eye-catching. Something that makes people think, "I want to read this!" First, I need to get them to pick it up! I started to think that I must do more of that kind of self-promotion.

And so, I got fired up, thinking, "I'm going to write for the Creative Awards!!!"
Bring on the filtering by numbers! If I can't earn numbers here, commercial success is impossible even in the next life. It's laughable to want commercial success without that resolve.

If I am to be filtered out by numbers, I must devise ways to get people to read it a lot. I don't know if I achieved that immediately in this Creative Awards. But it is a fact that one major axis has been added to my core for writing novels in the future. The fundamental premise of writing what I want to write and what I think is interesting remains unchanged. But I feel like I've gained the determination that I will stand up to the world of numbers!!

With that said, I submitted one past work and three new works to the Creative Awards! For those who haven't read them, please take a look at the synopses if you'd like. During the reader voting period, I will read as much as I can and write as many impressions as possible!