In a prestige driven industry like publishing, scooping up a book award is often considered critical to sales success. But just as the book market has become increasingly fragmented over the past ten years, so has the awards market. Competition not only among books, but among the prizes themselves, is heating up – for every Sobol that falls by the wayside, a small army of Quill, Thurber, and FT Awards are there to step into its place.
As awards proliferate, the latest are niche (outstanding work about the Revolutionary Era anyone?), although some still adhere to the more-is-more mantra (hey, the people like choice). Either way, the basic formula hasn’t changed much: Drum up interest and marketing opportunities by drawing out the selection process (longlist, wait a month, shortlist, wait a month), and then celebrate the winners in a lavish ceremony (Televised Black Tie! Fireworks over the Potomac!).
Although “The Big Ones” (as many refer to the Booker, National Book Award, Pulitzer, and NBCC) remain influential and coveted by authors and publishers alike, even the NBA is doing some serious soul searching lately, according to Executive Director Harold Augenbraum. And Man Booker Director Ion Trewin said that even though the Booker “the” a huge success, he’s aware it can’t “sit on its laurels” with other UK prizes such as the Orange quickly gaining an “enormous reputation.”
While every little bit of marketing and publicity hype helps, some publishers are at a breaking point. Carol Schneider, VP Executive Director of Publicity at Random House, said that as books and awards multiply, and consequently “so few awards offer a boost in sales,” it’s difficult to justify the often time consuming (and expensive) submissions process. Alternatively, Jeff Seroy, SVP Marketing & Publicity at FSG, said that, “Awards are extremely important to FSG, and Hill & Wang in particular.” In 2006 FSG submitted nominations for over 140 different prizes. Seroy added that different awards serve different purposes – some influence sales immediately, some in the long term, some are about prestige, some boost the author’s future work, some come with sizeable purses which allow writers to pursue their work more freely.
In order to cover all of their bases, most publishers err on the side of overzealous submissions, which can add up over the course of a year. To defray costs as innumerable new awards crop up (and demands on publishers’ support increase), some publishers hinted at the possibility of putting their authors in charge of the process in terms of both money and energy.
Few awards programs formally track their own success (though unofficially they follow the impact on sales, see chart), but most agree that, other than evergreens like the Caldecott/Newbery, awards in the UK and Canada are much more successful than their American counterparts in generating interest and palpable sales. While the Brits and colonies might skew more literary, it is more likely that shrewd marketing, corporate sponsorship, and a healthy dose of betting (Booker Bookies, Guess the Giller) play a part.
Unlike many American awards, the Giller Prize is sponsored by a major corporation (Scotia Bank), doesn’t charge submission fees or sell tickets to its gala event, and works in tandem with publishers to market books (pubs are required to front $1,500 to the marketing of shortlisted titles). Similarly, Trewin noted that publishers must commit £5,000 to market the Booker shortlist.
Generally awards marketing is non-existent, rooted in tombstone ads despite print’s dwindling audience. Although Augenbraum doesn’t think the NBA will ever contribute to publisher’s co-op, he could see the NBA devising a contest for best window display, for instance, offering prizes to booksellers of $2,500, $1,000, and $500. “If you have an endowed award (e.g. Bancroft, Pulitzer), it’s a very different outlook,” Augenbraum said. “They’re not beholden to sales – they can pick whatever they want. We’re trying to keep our place at the table because we don’t have the luxury of $10 million in the bank.” Which begs the question, can a large non-profit award continue to thrive without outside sponsors? The farthest the NBA has considered going is saying “The National Book Award, sponsored by,” but even that seems a fairly distant reality at this point. “There’s a certain Puritanism in the US that wouldn’t allow for that type of sponsorship,” Augenbraum said.
Still, the transition to corporate sponsorship has worked well for Costa Whitbread, Man Booker and Scotia Giller. Scott Manning, Founder of Books For A Better Life (an award for self-help books whose proceeds benefit Multiple Sclerosis) said he remains convinced that the awards could be supported outside of the publishing community, and that it would be beneficial for companies with an interest in the cause, like health or financial services, to be associated. Manning said that BBL has gone after a number of potential sponsors with limited success. “It would be a big step forward to have non-publishing corporate sponsorship.”
Corporate sponsor or not, “A large purse certainly doesn’t hurt,” Adam Goodheart Director of the Washington Book Prize (worth $50,000) said. “It’s helped us gain the degree of visibility we have.”
Then there are, of course, the mysterious Quills whose existence baffles most everyone (including, it seems, the people at Quills). “We don’t have access to sales increases,” spokesperson Abby Raphel said, “We can’t see a direct correlation yet.” This year, the Quills is undergoing a major restructuring, presumably because the efforts of the past two years have left something to be desired. Although they can’t release any details until late March, Raphael hinted at new voting options (à la American Idol texting) among others innovations.
As Giller’s Elana Rabinovich says, though, “The debate about literary prizes has definitely become a bit of a cottage industry. We always felt ‘the more, the merrier’ in terms of new prizes coming on-stream, but there is a palpable prize fatigue among the media.”
