The Bookseller.com

3rd December 2008

Alison Flood is The Bookseller's news editor.

A prize chance missed?

23.08.07

Graeme Neill writes:

Another week, another awards shortlist. Earlier this week, the Booksellers Association announced its shortlist for the inaugural Independent Booksellers' Book of the Year award. BA members selected the shortlist from a longlist (which was based on sales figures through indie bookshops). Customers can then vote on what they consider to be the best adult and children's book of 2007.

While the award is another blow against those who complain that the BA doesn't do enough for its independent members, is there not something about the shortlist that leaves you a bit cold? Titles like The God Delusion, The Tenderness of Wolves and Relentless are obvious, almost lazy, choices for a Book of the Year award. It feels that this could be a missed opportunity, for this year at least.

Granted the campaign, with specially produced point of sale material, will drive sales in the run up to Christmas by offering customers easy suggestions for Christmas gifts. But independents are frequently, and rightly, lauded for championing those books that fall outside of the supermarkets and sometimes chain stores. Top marks for including The Cloudspotter's Guide, Amo, Amas, Amat...and All That and (on the children's list) The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak. But a lot of the books shortlisted hardly need the extra publicity. The God Delusion in particular has been so heavily marketed across television, radio and the press this year that surely there is no-one left who hasn't heard of it?

Should the BA not have been a bit more adventurous and helped to drive the sales of some of the lesser known classics of 2007? Books like Resistance by Owen Sheers, Daniel Mason's A Far Country, or Steven Hall's The Raw Shark Texts? The Man Booker longlist of newcomers got a lot of publicity when it was released earlier this month. Should the BA have followed suit by championing the great undiscovered titles of this year? Or are they right in rewarding the books that did drive sales for indies in 2007?

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