A number of smaller presses The Bookseller spoke to said they would not be entering. Bloodaxe editor Neil Astley, who scored a shortlisting for Matthew Hollis' Ground Water in 2004, said he could not afford to: ”All the smaller publishers are really concerned." He added: "It really affects poetry . . . For fiction [an entry fee] may be part of the promotional budget but not poetry."Salt publishing director Jen Hamilton Emery said: ”I can understand why they have done it, but it's a lot of money. It's putting off a lot of people [from entering]. . . We always put in three entries. . . we may only put in one.” She added: ”It will exclude a lot of authors not published by big publishing houses."
Friday, June 11, 2010
Guardian First Book Award Ruling
The Bookseller picks up on the dismay of small literary publishers at the introduction of an entry fee for the Guardian First Book Award. Katie Allen reports:
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6 comments:
Ugh. (Well said, eh?)
Yup
Bah
Bah indeed
Ugh, indeed. And it's not just entry fees and publicity "contributions" that put some publishers off from submitting all their best books: it's also the case that since some prizes have limits to the number of books a publisher can submit, it may also come down to which books a publisher has paid most for in terms of advances and therefore which they have to push at all costs; or which author for other reasons they are most committed to pushing. The possible repercussions for an author whose eligible book is not submitted are far-reaching and damaging, impacting on future deals as well as crucial income. For a publisher, it's a book; for authors, it's indescribably more.
Well said, Nicola.
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