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Campaigns for books by Yomi Adegoke and Chris van Tulleken win Publishers’ Publicity Circle Awards
Campaigns for books by Yomi Adegoke, Katherine Rundell and Chris van Tulleken are among the winners of the 2024 Publishers’ Publicity Circle (PPC) annual awards, which celebrate the best campaigns carried out by book publicists between December 2022 and November 2023.
Fourth Estate’s Naomi Mantin clinched The Waterstones Award for Best Hardback Fiction Campaign for her work on Adegoke’s The List, while The Bookseller Award for Best Hardback Non-Fiction Campaign went to Cornerstone’s Etty Eastwood for her work on van Tulleken’s Ultra-Processed People: Why Do We All Eat Stuff That Isn’t Food … and Why Can’t We Stop?. Alison Davies and Ryn Gardner from Jonathan Cape were highly commended for their campaign for Politics on the Edge by Rory Stewart.
The Connell MPA Award for Best Celebrity Campaign went to Charlotte Bush from Cornerstone for My Name is Barbra by Barbra Streisand while The Daily Mail Award for Best Children’s Book Campaign was awarded to Beatrice Cross from Bloomsbury for Rundell’s Impossible Creatures. Lizz Skelly, from Puffin, and Rishma Dhaliwal, from MediaHive were highly commended in this category for their work on Stolen History by Sathnam Sanghera. The full list of winners can be found below.
Caroline Sanderson, chair of judges and associate editor at The Bookseller, said: “Fifteen awards, more than 90 shortlisted campaigns, demonstrating a wealth of creativity, tenacity, flexibility, affability, diplomacy, sensitivity and a ton of hard graft. It was a privilege as ever to read of all the sterling efforts by publicists to make books the centre of press and public attention. Heartiest congratulations to everyone shortlisted and to our worthy winners.”
The winners were crowned at a ceremony in London last night (4th March), and were judged by a panel of book industry and media professionals consisting of Sanderson; broadcaster and author Nihal Arthanayake; writer and broadcaster Sam Baker; founder and c.e.o. of the Black British Book Festival Selina Brown; head of books at Waterstones Bea Carvalho; and research and development director at CLPE Farrah Serroukh.
The British Book Awards judging team will select the shortlist for the Publicity Campaign of the Year British Book Award from this year’s PPC Annual award winners.
Joe Thomas, chair of the PPC and deputy publicity director and commissioning editor at Headline, added: “I want to extend enormous congratulations to everyone who submitted for the awards, the shortlisted publicists and of course our winners – it was another extraordinary year of campaigns, and I’m constantly amazed by the creativity, sensitivity and determination of publicists across the industry. Having the opportunity to celebrate together at our annual awards evening is the highlight of the PPC calendar. I’d like to say a particular thank you to the PPC committee for their efforts in putting together the awards process, our sponsors for supporting the awards, and our brilliant judges for their insights and expertise.”
Thomas now steps down as PPC chair and Anna Frame, communications director at Canongate takes over as chair for 2024.
The full list of winners is as follows:
The Waterstones Award for Best Hardback Fiction Campaign
- Winner: The List by Yomi Adegoke – Naomi Mantin, Fourth Estate
The Bookseller Award for Best Hardback Non-Fiction Campaign
- Winner: Ultra-Processed People: Why Do We All Eat Stuff That Isn’t Food … and Why Can’t We Stop? by Chris van Tulleken – Etty Eastwood, Cornerstone
- Highly Commended: Politics on the Edge by Rory Stewart – Alison Davies and Ryn Gardner, Jonathan Cape
The Connell MPA Award for Best Celebrity Campaign
- Winner: My Name is Barbra by Barbra Streisand – Charlotte Bush, Cornerstone
The Nielsen BookData Award for Best Debut Campaign
- Winner: Bellies by Nicola Dinan – Milly Reid, Transworld
The Books Are My Bag Award for Best Lifestyle, Gift and Humour Campaign
- Winner: The Creative Act by Rick Rubin – Anna Frame, Canongate
The PPC Award for Best Children’s and YA Celebrity Campaign
- Winner: This is Me! by George Webster and Claire Taylor, illustrated by Tim Budgen – Rachel Phillipps, Scholastic
The Daily Mail Award for Best Children’s Book Campaign
- Winner: Impossible Creatures by Katherine Rundell – Beatrice Cross, Bloomsbury
- Highly Commended: Stolen History by Sathnam Sanghera – Lizz Skelly, Puffin, and Rishma Dhaliwal, MediaHive
The PPC Award for Best Paperback Original Campaign
- Winner: Sounds Like Fun by Bryan Moriarty – Ollie Martin, Hodder & Stoughton
The PPC Award for Best YA Campaign
- Winner: HappyHead by Josh Silver – Liz Scott, Freelance for Rock the Boat
The Read Maxwell Communications Award for Best Crime and Thriller Campaign
- Winner: The Mysterious Case of the Alperton Angels by Janice Hallett – Drew Jerrison, Profile Books
The PPC Award for Best Academic Campaign
- Winner: The Wife of Bath: A Biography by Marion Turner – Carmen Jimenez, Princeton University Press
The Edinburgh International Book Festival Award for Best Generic Campaign
- Winner: ESEA Lit Fest – Maria Garbutt-Lucero, Hodder & Stoughton
The PPC Award for Best Cookery Book Campaign
- Winner: The Farm Table by Julius Roberts – Alice King, Ebury
The PPC Award for Best Sports Book Campaign
- Winner: Kammy: My Unbelievable Life by Chris Kamara – Josie Turner, Pan Macmillan
- Highly Commended: The Race To Be Myself by Caster Semenya – Alice Dewing, Cornerstone
The Jo James Award for Best Newcomer Campaign
- Winner: For Thy Great Pain Have Mercy On My Little Pain by Victoria MacKenzie – Grace Nzita-Kiki, Bloomsbury
- Highly Commended: Behind the Seams: My Life in Rhinestones by Dolly Parton – Ellie Auton, Ebury Press
