There is a common impression that there has been a change in character of the Dragon Awards this year. I though I might use the Wikipedia page view metric (see here) to see if I could quantify it it in a different way.
An immediate obstacle with using the page view figure is that the distribution is very Zipf like. That makes averages very misleading because the odd Steven King or Margaret Atwood creates a big change in the mean score. To overcome that issue and also to show the authors who don’t have Wikipedia pages, I’ve grouped the data in bins that get proportionately bigger. The first bin is 0 to 10 (basically people who don’t have a Wikipedia page) then 10 to 50, then 50 to 100, then 100 to 500 etc. up to 100,000 or more which is basically Steven King.
One major caveat. The page view numbers are as they are in September 2020 in all cases. So figures for past years reflect those counts for the authors now and not as they were in the year of the award.
This is the table for book categories (I haven’t gather the data for people in the comic book categories).
| Group | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| < 10 | 42 | 62 | 45 | 34 | 44 | 227 |
| ≥ 10 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 3 | ||
| ≥ 50 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 5 | ||
| ≥ 100 | 5 | 4 | 8 | 8 | 6 | 31 |
| ≥ 500 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 6 | ||
| ≥ 1,000 | 12 | 10 | 9 | 14 | 15 | 60 |
| ≥ 5,000 | 3 | 1 | 4 | 4 | 2 | 14 |
| ≥ 10,000 | 6 | 9 | 4 | 3 | 5 | 27 |
| ≥ 50,000 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 4 | ||
| > 100,000 | 1 | 1 |
Obviously, there are many ways you can group this data but I think it shows some sensible groupings.
| Group | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| < 10 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 8 |
| ≥ 50 | 1 | 1 | ||||
| ≥ 100 | 1 | 1 | 2 | |||
| ≥ 500 | 2 | 2 | ||||
| ≥ 1,000 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 12 |
| ≥ 5,000 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 6 | |
| ≥ 10,000 | 4 | 2 | 1 | 7 | ||
| ≥ 50,000 | 1 | 1 | 2 | |||
| > 100,000 | 1 | 1 |
These tables don’t suggest any substantial changes to the Dragon Awards. There are ups and downs but the overall character seems to be similar: a mix of big names (e.g. in 2016, Terry Pratchett and Brandon Sanderson) down to names that are famous within their Amazon niches (e.g. Nick Cole).
However, if we look at just the ‘headline’ categories defined by the broad genres Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror (I thought I should include Horror) we see a different story.
| Group | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| < 10 | 7 | 12 | 12 | 2 | 33 | |
| ≥ 10 | 1 | 1 | 2 | |||
| ≥ 50 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 4 | ||
| ≥ 100 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 8 | |
| ≥ 500 | 2 | 2 | ||||
| ≥ 1000 | 5 | 6 | 2 | 6 | 10 | 29 |
| ≥ 5000 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 2 | 7 | |
| ≥ 10000 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 5 | 15 |
| ≥ 50000 | 1 | 1 | 2 | |||
| > 100000 | 1 | 1 |
In these three categories, the authors are (by the page view metric) more notable in 2020 than in previous years.
What about gender? The Dragon Awards have been very male dominated both in absolute terms and even more so in comparison to contemporary awards. Using the page metric groups, a shift becomes more clear.
| Group | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| < 10 | 3 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 17 |
| ≥ 10 | 0 | |||||
| ≥ 50 | 1 | 1 | ||||
| ≥ 100 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 11 |
| ≥ 500 | 2 | 2 | ||||
| ≥ 1,000 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 6 | 10 | 24 |
| ≥ 5,000 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 7 | |
| ≥ 10,000 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 7 | |
| ≥ 5,0000 | 1 | 1 | ||||
| > 100,000 | 0 |
The substantial increase is with women authors in the 1000 to 5000 range. The difference in gender balance becomes clearer in aggregate across the years.
| Group | He/him | She/Her | Total | % he | % she |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| < 10 | 77 | 17 | 94 | 82% | 18% |
| ≥ 10 | 3 | 3 | 100% | 0% | |
| ≥ 50 | 4 | 1 | 5 | 80% | 20% |
| ≥1 00 | 20 | 11 | 31 | 65% | 35% |
| ≥ 500 | 4 | 2 | 6 | 67% | 33% |
| ≥ 1,000 | 36 | 24 | 60 | 60% | 40% |
| ≥ 5,000 | 7 | 7 | 14 | 50% | 50% |
| ≥ 10,000 | 20 | 7 | 27 | 74% | 26% |
| ≥ 50,000 | 3 | 1 | 4 | 75% | 25% |
| > 100,000 | 1 | 1 | 100% | 0% | |
| Total | 175 | 70 | 245 | 71% | 29% |
The gender balance increases with grouping size until the 5,000 group and then declines. Interestingly, with three each, the 50-50 split in that group also exists for winners.
So, yes the Dragons are changing but only in places. Down ballot, finalists still tend to be less notable and more male in a way that’s not very different from 2016.
