I'm a little late in posting in this discussion, but this is the first opportunity I've had to sit down and go over this seriously. As Deputy Lead of the WST, I'll expand a little on what Myk said.
I handled the last four GA Promising Authors. Once the decision was made to make the offer, I pm'd each of them with the offer. They in turn, replied and I sent them instructions for the next step. They were to send a blurb about themselves and a banner to Steph. I then let Steph know who was going to be contacting her. Once she had the blurb and banner added to the Authors page, she let me know. I then contacted Joe for a change in tags. When Joe let me know the changes were done, I posted the announcement. All of this was done in just a few days. GA Promising Authors continue to post their stories in eFiction.
Once the offer is made and accepted for GA Hosted Author, then a website must be designed with the author and tech support working together and depending on what's going on behind the scenes that keep GA going, it can take some time before the site is ready to go.
Once we get this years awards done, the Team can then look into the categories for next years.