The sceptical book buying public will increasingly look upon awards as just another form of co-op promos.

No, you are not. This is absolutely outrageous. I have asked my publisher not to enter my books for the CWA awards. It is quite unacceptable to ask for money to be shortlisted.. we know where that will lead. If you want to charge publishers an entry fee towards admin. that is one thing. If you put your Tomatoes up for a prize in the local produce show it costs you to enter. But to select a shortlist and make a book`s appearance conditional on the publisher paying, is out of order. Supposing a Long Barn Books got onto one of the shortlists ? I couldn`t pay - and why should I ? So presumably my author would not be shortlisted. It stinks.

Some years back the ENNIES (RPG publishing) had a problem, they didn't have the money for the awards. So ENWorld (the people behind the ENNIES) started selling RPG books through the online RPG Shops store. This was followed sometime later by the ENWorld Shop, a PDF market. One standard was set, a publisher did not have to sell through either of ENWorld's stores to be eligible for an ENNIE. All a publisher needs to have a work considered is a nomination and to provide review copies to the judging committee (a body of five chosen annually from among posters at the ENWorld forums). In the 5 years since the establishment of the ENNIES they have become the official awards of the RPG industry.

It is possible to put an awards program on a sound financial setting, but you need to be honest and aboveboard about it. No special considerations, no backroom deals. The CWA's proposal bothers me, in that it has the appearance of a conflict of interest. As Clive and Susan have noted, it would degrade the value of the awards.

Maybe the CWA should upon an online store specializing in the sale of crime writing. With the proviso that not selling through the CWA store has no bearing on eligibility for the Daggers.

Richard,

If I may, I have a message for your readers.

Dear Charkblog Readers,

I've got a secret for you. Richard allows comments because he wants to hear from you. He wants to know what you think about the issues and subjects he brings up. That's why he posts about them. I know there has to be more than three of us with something to say. Join the fun, comment.

I've got another secret for you, I'm a raving loon living on mental disability in the United States. That's right, I'm an American and I comment on a high muckety-muck Brit's blog. If I can do it, what's stopping you?

Be bold. Be daring. Comment!

:D

But it`s the same on my blog Alan. I have around 600 hits a day but the same 4 - 5 people comment all the time. I think most people find this.. Tim Coates gets many more hits than I do, on his Good Library Blog, but again, only 2 or 3 comments usually from the same people. Pity but that`s the way it is. I think a lot of people browse a lot of blogs whereas I regularly read just 4 and usually comment.

Susan- I think you're right. Folks seem to take a scalpel vs. butter knife approach to blog reading and commenting (as in many other things, although hopefully this is not a choice a sugeon can make).

Well, the CWA puts its foot in it yet again. But they're talented in that respect...

Invoking the Booker and the Orange to justify their new money-grabbing ploy is ingenuous. Yes, those awards do charge as is pointed out BUT the money raised is used to extensively publicise the shortlist in the book trade by producing posters, display stands, showcards, etc...

On the occasion of the first Duncan Lawrie Daggers, the CWA did no such thing and the only item of publicity for the shortlist outside of Press Releases was a small display sticker (totally useless at that) in fact supplied (and paid for?) by Duncan Lawrie...

People know about the Hugos for science fiction because publishers boast about being nominated. How many publishers boast about being nominated for a Dagger? How many publishers even care?

I'm 'only' a reader but I've been disappointed at the way the CWA is going with the Daggers. I feel that they've been devalued and with all the conditions now attached, can the winner truly be said to be the best for that year/judging period?

Like Karen, I'm a reader. But I'll also be devil's advocate to some preceptions that have come before and not just here.

Publishers are not paying to be on the shortlist per se; from the press release on Book2Book it appears that the future plan is to ask publishers to pay the fee for any books the judges have determined are to be on the shortlist.

However, if I was a publisher, I'd expect a decent return on that and from what Maxim Jakubowski says, it does not look great.

As a reader, I've matured or maybe I've just changed or developed my interests over the years. There was a time when I'd have gone into a book shop and seen a promotion of the "shortlist" for some award or other and thought "The also-rans, they didn't make it, I'll given them a miss". Now, I'd do the opposite. Perhaps that's also a factor of the number of books on my shelves that I haven't read, that were Booker winners in the 80s.

When it comes to commercialism, perhaps it's because crime sells, and pretty well at that, that there is a feeling of "less need to promote". Crime writers now seem to be far more vocal about exclusion from the literary prize lists and feel a need to be recognised for the quality of their writing as well as its undoubted popularity. (I echo their thoughts, with some being both commerical/popular and also producing the type of prose that makes me feel humble and inadequate - but that's a good thing - honestly.)

If the recent Theakston's Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award shortlist was a future CWA one, Honno Welsh Women's Press (for Lindsay Ashford's inclusion) would face a fee. Honno is still an independent co-operative press financially supported by the Welsh Books Council. I'd like to think that a press like theirs could find the potential £500 and have the payback it deserved for the shortlist inclusion. But I'm not so sure, on either count.

I perceive that the CWA wants to become more commercial and widely recognised, and that the Duncan Lawrie sponsorship is a well earned support in the start to that. Change, as we know, is never often welcomed and mistakes can be made.

There are two sides to the coin, though. I believe that Debut Dagger entrants have had a small and fixed fee for years. A fixed fee for all seems reasonable and equitable. But, there are some that might find that hard and thus are excluded. Similarly, get to the shortlist and receive an invoice for a hefty amount and it's potentially drop dead in transit time. Neither is best. But, I think a broad sweeping brush approach to collection of fees to defray costs, making all contribute some small amount is better.

Those collecting the fees then don't have to worry about explaining themselves for the way they collect it. And, if you choose the route the CWA's recent press release has indicated, you'd also owe an author the respect of saying "Was picked for shortlist but publisher didn't make fee. Judging committee otherwise very impressed."

It is like a dog's breakfast, given response thoughts, but change always is.

I worry about the Booker and Orange shortlisted authors after this has come to light, though. Read the Sunday Times Review section in any week and look at the top ten hard back and paper back novels - I'd say that 6 or 7 at least, each week are of the crime/thriller genre. (As skewed in another direction by the Richard and Judy book club, when in motion.) A winner will make it there, but someone on the shortlist? And all that for £2,000?

Thank God for word of mouth.

Karen says "can the winner truly be said to be the best for that year/judging period?"

Having been a judge for the Gold and Silver (in old money) and currently a judge on the Ian Fleming Steel Dagger, I can categorically state that the book chosen as the best for that year is selected by the judges without any external influences by writers, publishers or guns to our temple.
Mike

Mike wrote :"I can categorically state that the book chosen as the best for that year is selected by the judges without any external influences by writers, publishers or guns to our temple."

Mike, I'm sure that no judge is influenced by the factors you menioned :-), but the books have to be submitted first. Susan Hill commented above, she would now be asking her publishers not to submit her books for consideration and thus her book can't be chosen as best of the year. And if other authors, or less wealthy publishers do the same, then the pool of contenders could become significantly diminished.

You can't enter the Booker without agreeing to the £2000 condition, which they set out clearly in their entry conditions, explaining the money is spent on promotion. Small publishers have to be hesitant to enter anything, however; most refrain, I think.
In the case of CWA, £500 is a great deal of money for any small publisher, which makes it bad news.

Is it any wonder that us "ordinary readers" have become increasingly cynical about the whole kitten caboodle and now blog amongst ourselves about great reads and pass the word around? Most of us are ignoring the review pages, the 3 for 2's and increasingly the prizelists.Plenty of us have been quietly exchanging great reads through international online reading groups for years and there's a potential audience that no one seems to have taken any notice of, do publishers even know they exist? Have you typed "reading group" into Yahoo groups lately?
Word of a good read spreads around these like a bush fire and likewise we telegraph the turkeys well in advance!
The Book Bloggers Book Prize when it comes to fruition will have a far bigger audience than many people realise and I don't think it will cost a penny to be shortlisted.The awards dinner won't wreck your cholesterol because it will be virtual, no new outfits to be bought, but just wait;the book that wins will truly deserve to be read.

Lynne is of sound mind and reasoning if you ask me.

This at least explains why certain types of books are submitted and others are not. Clearly if you are a trying to increase sales of a book, you probably won't enter a book that is already selling well... What would be the point? And hence we tend to see some rather obscure and (dare I say) somewhat boring reads entering into the Booker fray...

It also explains why these prizes are almost exclusively given to major publishers... They are the only ones who can afford the gamble of entering.

Question to Susan: Have you thought about some new type of publicity? Instead of;

"Short-listed for the Booker",

you could have;

"Would probably have been short-listed for the booker had we been able to afford the fee"...

I admit it doesn't slip off the tongue and will probably require a small point size to get it on the cover, but it would be a little bit of originality in the staid world of book publicity...

(BTW: long-time-reader-first-time-poster)

PS – My spellchecker wanted to correct “Short-listed” to “Short-lived” which I find rather poetic…

As I understand it, the National Television Awards are voted for entirely by the public. At present, in its purest form, the best sellers' list (based on Nielsen BookScan) would seem to be the only thing in the book world that comes close.
A set of book awards voted for entirely by the public would seem to me to be a good thing. (As long it couldn't be manipulated like the the Amazon best sellers' listing...)

How's this for lateral thinking? Why not, no fee for entry to any of these competitions. Instead, a binding agreement from every entrant/publisher that should their book win, five percent of the profits accruing to that book in the twelve months immediately following announcement of their success shall go to support the administration of the prize? The 5% is just a ballpark figure. It should be possible to identify the average first year profit of prize winners, and the average cost of administration for the prize, and settle on a fair percentage.