BAMB Readers Awards to launch this year

The Booksellers Association (BA) is set to launch a new book prize to coincide with the annual Books Are My Bag (BAMB) campaign, asking readers to vote for their favourite books of the year across five categories. 

The Books Are My Bag Readers Awards will ask the public to vote for the best books across fiction, non-fiction, biography and autobiography, children’s and for who they think deserves the prize of "breakthrough author".

The awards, revealed at the BA’s annual conference held at the University of Warwick today (12th September) is supported by National Book Tokens. The shortlist will be revealed on Thursday 6th October ahead of the inaugural national Bookshop Day on 8th October. From that day, the public will be asked to vote in bookshops and online for their favourite books until 14th November, with the winners announced at a ceremony in London on 24th November.

Alan Staton, head of marketing and communications at the BA, said: “We’re delighted to be launching the Books Are My Bag Readers Awards. The feedback we have had from booksellers and publishers has been fantastic. It’s a great way for Books Are My Bag to continue its engagement with the country’s book lovers through the autumn and to put the bookshops curation at the heart of the process.”

Last month, the BA revealed the first Bookshop Day for the UK and Ireland will be held on Saturday 8th October, with bookshops urged to host special parties, events and book-signings to mark the event at the start of the crucial autumn selling season.