| Most "popular awards" are won by the books that are most widely known. This is because they simply ask people to cast a vote for their favorite books--which favors the most widely read books, which are not necessarily the best.
Most popular awards are also heavily biased towards authors with large followings because the authors and publishers are actively encouraged to solicit their fans to vote; this gives a significant advantage to those who are most active online. Some awards even allow individuals to vote multiple times (because that increases the traffic to the website hosting the award.)
BookBrowse's voting process is different:
Firstly, instead of asking you to simply vote for a favorite book, we ask you to rate each nominated book that you've read on a 5-point scale. The winning books are those with the highest average rating, so long as they receive a minimum number of votes to qualify.
Secondly, only those already subscribed to our mailing list at the time the voting opens are eligible to vote. This prevents the "vote stuffing" so prevalent in other popular votes.
In short, like everything at BookBrowse, our Awards are designed to recognize quality rather than simply who's got the biggest marketing budget. | 
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