The Parsec Award Year runs between May 1st of last year and April 30th of the current year. Material submitted in samples must have been podcast during the Parsec Award Year, not before or after.
The entry must have appeared as part of an RSS or similar syndication distribution system over the Internet and it must be provided free of charge.
Only one sample should be submitted for each nominated podcast, regardless of type and number of categories for which the podcast has been nominated.
The submitted work must be the original work of the nominee or those associated with the production of the content. Material that infringes upon copyright or trademarked characters, stories of worlds, other than as parody, will not be considered.
No one working or contributing to the podcast may have been involved in the selection process for that podcast in any way.
Steering Committee member ineligibility:
Members of the Steering Committee do not make the final selection of award winners and are ineligible to receive an award in any year in which they are members of the committee. Podcasts to which they have contributed are eligible for award but the board member must recuse themselves from any involvement in either the nomination or selection process.
Series Eligibility:
For podcasts of a non-syndicated nature: fiction stories, video or audio dramas, these works can only be nominated and judged for a single Parsec Award Year. When the broadcast/distribution window of a non-syndicated work extends across two or more Parsec Award Years, the author may choose to opt-out of a nomination for the present award year in order to be eligible for nomination in the following year.
Samples for all categories may include an original 30 second introduction to the podcast and, or materials being submitted. Length of the samples should be as follows:
For purposes of award consideration, the submitted sample may be engineered with audio fade-in, fade-out or cross-fades but no additional enhancement to the originally presented work is allowed. Remixing, re-editing or producing of new content for award consideration, except for the introduction disqualifies the nominee.
