Jared writes:

“Before I get into my own superficial conclusions, it is important to note that I’m not claiming that our submissions are indicative of anything besides our submissions. But, at 200+ books, selected by the publishers (and occasionally prompted by the judges), there’s possibly some sort of loose/anecdotal correlation with the year’s genre output as a whole. 

• There’s a shocking lack of fiction in translation – statistically, a UK genre title is twice as likely to have a zombie than be first published in a non-English language. Sadly, I suspect this is probably true across the genre, and not just in our submissions pile. 
• Vampires and zombies are still going strong.
• Steampunk’s not going away either.
• Quite a few people predicted that angels and demons would be popular in 2012 (yup) and that superheroes and werewolves would be on the rise in 2013 (we’ll see).
• As the award ages, we’re now in a position where previous finalists (and winners) now have new books submitted. This year, we had six (plus two others with re-jacketed old books submitted for the Inky).
• “Mid-series” is also an interesting one, encompassing both outright, “picks up after the cliffhanger ending” sequels and self-contained novels that are set in existing worlds. How to judge a mid-series book seems a uniquely genre challenge: George RR Martin’s latest installment in A Song of Ice and Fire is an inevitable Hugo finalist, whereas “lit-fic” prizes deal with, at most, the occasional sequel (see: Hilary Mantel).  
• There was some discussion earlier this year about a self-publishing “avalanche” overwhelming the submissions piles of all book awards. Even with our liberal submissions policy – no fee, only two physical copies required – we only received seven self-published books. (Requiring physical copies, which can even take the form of stapled print-outs, isn’t meant to be a barrier, as not all of our judges have e-readers.) “

Check out the full post HERE