What is the status of my book review?

Book Status | Lists: Need Reviewer or With Reviewers
Main Reviews & Awards Page

See explanatory notes below

• The above spreadsheet is "live" and represents the current status of all books received this season

• If all books aren’t displayed, please try to “refresh” or “reload” the page (the <F5> key works in most browsers).

• If your book was there one day, but not the next—sometimes the list stops loading at about 10 lines—a refresh will normally fix the display problem.

  • Don’t worry, we will NEVER delete a book from this list without the author’s knowledge.

  • Again, the problem is almost certainly with the online display of the data—not with our tracking system.

• Books appear in the order received (first received at the top)

• Use the scroll bar to find your book

Explanations & Expectations

Status, Numbers, and Days

• Once you submit your book to MWSA, it goes through three basic phases:

  1. Getting three reviewers for each book

  2. Getting books to reviewers

  3. Getting scores, comments, and review back from reviewers

• The above phases translate into the follow statuses (which are indicated in the chart above):

  • Request Received — Within a few days of receiving the details about your book, MWSA starts the process of entering your book into our website and tracking system. Once we get everything ready, we’ll contact you to let you know your book is accepted into our review and awards program. At that point, your book will transition to the Need Reviewer(s) status (see below).

  • Need Reviewer(s) — Each book in this status is available for pickup by our volunteer reviewer force.

    • Your book's status will remain "Need Reviewer(s)" until we have ALL THREE reviewers identified

    • Look at the "Rvwrs Needed" column to see how many have currently volunteered

      • "0" means all three have signed up, "3" means no one has volunteered yet

    • Once we've got your three reviewers (which can take as long as 3-4 weeks, or a little as a few hours) the Awards Director will email you with instructions on how to get your books to your reviewers. You will not normally hear from us before that time.

    • Once we send that email, the next phase begins...

  • Books Requested — After your three reviewers are lined up, we send you an email with instructions on how you’ll mail your books to reviewers, or email your eBooks to the Awards Directors. Once you let us know they’re on the way, your status changes to…

  • Awaiting Book(s) — Once we ask for your review copies, the clock starts ticking to measure the number of days it takes for ALL THREE reviewers to get your book in the mail (or email, in the case of eBooks)

    • As with the first phase/status, you can see how many reviewers have NOT gotten your book (the "Books Needed" column) and the number of elapsed days waiting for all three to arrive

    • We will normally contact you after about 14 days if one or more of your review copies is "lost in the mail." You can avoid this by using first class or priority mail.

    • Once all reviewers acknowledge receipt, we move to the final phase...

  • Awaiting Score(s) — Obviously, we all have busy schedules and read at different speeds. Getting all your evaluation scores, comments, and review can take a while—sometimes a month or more!

    • As before, you can track the status of your book, see how many reviewers have NOT submitted their evaluation (the "Scores Needed" column), and see the number of elapsed days in the current status.

    • Once all scores come in, we're either "Finished"... or almost there.

  • Finished — When our work is complete, your review will be posted to your book's page on our website (click on your book title to get there quickly).

    • After all books are scored for the season, MWSA will announce our Award Finalists.

      • Being a Finalist means your book has scored high enough for an MWSA award.

      • We announce actual medals during our annual membership conference and awards banquet

    • A few times each year, the three reviewers evaluating the same book reach a "split decision." In this case, our MWSA procedures call for an "intermediate stop" between the end of "Awaiting Score(s)" and "Finished:"

  • Awaiting Conference — All human beings have opinions... and not surprisingly, they're often quite different!

    • If there is a significant divergence in the scoring results of your three reviewers, MWSA will convene what we call a "Divergence Conference."

    • During this time, the Awards Director moderates a short conference among your three reviewers where everyone shares his/her thoughts about your book.

    • If you notice that your book is in this status, don't worry--it's not necessarily a "bad thing," as we may be trying to decide between a Gold or Silver medal!

    • A Divergence Conference ends in one of two ways:

      • Your three reviewers reach a new/revised consensus on final score results, or

      • If no one agrees to change his/her scores, the mathematical average of all three scores is used to determine the final results

      • Once complete, your status will change to "Finished" and your review posted online

  • Other (See Notes) — Don’t worry, it’s a “Sausage Factory” sort of thing.

    • This normally means that we’re scrambling… trying to get our act together before we move from one stage to another.

      • In almost every case, we’re doing things like checking a reviewer’s address and/or book format preference, looking for a lost reviewer, trying to find the right key to the control room… that sort of thing.

    • If you check back in a day or two, things will almost certainly have gotten back on track.

Special Status & Our Guarantee

• Awaiting Backlog — As you know, MWSA's reviewer force is made up entirely of volunteers. Sometimes, our schedules get in the way of our timely evaluation and review of your book.

  • If we start getting behind (especially when books do not have assigned volunteers for an extended period of time), the Awards Director will suspend assigning new books to reviewers.

  • This only happens occasionally and lasts as long as it takes to assign those books that have "been in the queue" too long. These temporary pauses normally don’t exceed a week.

  • For details about our submission types (normal and provisional), visit our main awards page.

  • MWSA is committed to scoring and reviewing all books so they can be considered for an award in the calendar year they're submitted.

• What happens if MWSA can't finish my book in time? — MWSA will make every effort to review your book by the end of the season. However, in case we miss that goal, MWSA guarantees that the author will be afforded the opportunity to either...

  • have their book qualify for the following season, or

  • receive a full refund of their book submission fee.

Still have a question or concern?

• Please contact the Awards Director!

Temporarily unavailable, see list above.

Note: only the most-recent 30 books in this category are displayed.