Conflict of interest, maybe???

[Robert]

G'day all. I recently entered Ashar'an Rising in a pretty big Australian writing competition. While I was not expecting to win, or even be a finalist, what did concern me were the actual finalists. 2 or 3 of the 5 fantasy finalists have blurbs on their covers by the other winning authors, and one of the books even has a 5 star review on amazon by the conveyor of the judging panel. Is it a case of sour grapes, or is this sort of thing to be expecting at the high level of writing where the writers of the big publishing companies carry weight merely because of their publisher? Don't get me wrong, I read some of the finalists' works and thought they were good, but certainly not noticeably different than my own entry or even that of many indie offerings I have read of late. Is this why indie publishing has taken off, and is this part of the reason why people turn away from the 'Big 5' publishers, so to speak?
Of another concern to me, which might be coincidence but might not be, was that the three judges for the fantasy section were female, and all five of the finalists were females. II do not sit here and say that men are better writers than women, in fact I think it is great for fantasy literature, I just thought it worth mentioning :)

~Rob

[B.]

Cumulatively, the situation does sound a bit suspect. I am regularly disappointed when I expect impartiality or fairness from humans. I guess it's a matter of hoping for the best, but planning for the worst.

[Steve]

Hmm, it does look a little suspicious. Can you find any connection between judges and the finalists aside from just having read the books before (and that by itself adds a natural bias)?