What's the Deal With... Goodreads Choice Awards

An internet rant is a beautiful thing, I mean, why even be online, with all the anonymity that brings, and even attempt to contain all that angst. It's why we have comments on everything from blogs to Youtube to news stories. People need to complain! We have things on our chest and we've got to get them off...and our significant others are just plain tired of hearing the same thing over and over again. 

In light of this, I decided to institute a new feature on the blog where I can bring up whatever's on my mind, be it terrible book covers, titles, ideas, bloggers (okay, probably just one blogger), you name it and have some fun with it. 

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Anyone who reads the blog regularly already knows that I'm a huge fan of Goodreads. You can literally spend (definitely not waste) hours and hours on the site organizing your books, reading reviews, finding out stats, comparing books, and more. 

If I had to choose between keeping Google and Goodreads, it wouldn't even be a contest, Goodreads all the way.

But no one's perfect, not even the inimitable Goodreads.

For some reason, they've decided to start the voting for their "Choice Awards" in October of the same year. Says their announcement:

The Opening Round lasts until November 10. Vote now to make sure your favorite books make it into the Semifinals.

I don't know about you, but last time I checked there are still a couple months after October. Okay, so I guess technically you could read a book that comes out in November during those first 10 days and vote for it, but that's probably not really going to happen right?

Other awards (Hugo, Nebula, DGLA for instance) seem to function just fine having the voting after the year has a chance to take it's toll. I'd chalk it up to worry about the Mayan end-of-the-world scenario if this didn't occur each year, but what's the deal?

After a bit of research, I found out that books released after the voting begins are included in the next year's awards, but doesn't that just seem like an unnecessary complication? I can possibly see Butcher's Cold Days (Nov. 27, 2012 release date) making next year's cut (maybe), but I can't help thinking this is just silly. 

Please, someone with better sense than me explain this to me.

Ps. Happy Halloween!