New award categories from The Book Marketing Society

The Book Marketing Society is redefining the categories for its 2016-17 Awards programme.

The Adult category has now been split into Adult Fiction and Non-Fiction, alongside Children’s. Also a Multi-title Campaign category has also been created, for campaigns promoting backlist titles or any other grouping of titles co-ordinated by a single campaign.

Meanwhile for the Adult and Children’s “Shoestring” category, the maximum threshold of total campaign spend has been halved, to £2,500.

As before, judges will also be considering marketers or marketing teams for the Outstanding Achievement award through the next year.

Jo Henry, the BMS’s executive director, said, “We’re keen to encourage a greater diversity of campaigns being submitted by publishers and retailers for these prestigious awards, and to ensure that those that are submitted are being judged as fairly as possible. These new categories will result in even more fantastic marketing campaigns to applaud and an even greater clarity in the judging process.”

The 2015/16 Award winners were announced at the Bookseller’s Marketing & Publicity Conference in June. Anna Bowen of Bluebird (for Joe Wicks’ Lean in 15), Vicky Photiou of Ladybird (for Carl-Johan Forssen Ehrlin’s The Rabbit Who Wants to Fall Asleep) and Harper Collins’ Caroline Maddison and Justine Gold (for Scrabble Week) were among the winners. Simon & Schuster Children’s were named Best Marketing Team.