Double win for Orion at BMS awards

Orion scooped two prizes at The Book Marketing Society’s latest seasonal awards, with wins for Penguin Random House and Pan Macmillan too. 

Orion won Best Debut Campaign for Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams and Best Adult Fiction Campaign for In a House of Lies by Ian Rankin. 

Judges praised Queenie marketer Cait Davies for "truly integrated campaign that created multiple opportunities to showcase not just the book, but also the author." Bethan Ferguson and Hannah Winter at Hachette stablemate Quercus were highly commended for their campaign for Beth O'Leary's The Flatshare. 

Orion's Tom Noble was recognised for his work on Rankin's latest with Hunting Evil by Chris Carter, with marketing by Richard Vlietstra at Simon & Schuster highly commended. 

Praising the Rankin campaign, judges said: "An exemplary, rigorous campaign and campaign report that really does the scale of budget in play here justice; a critical approach is visibly demonstrated from early planning to fine details during execution. Partnerships feel constructive and relevant, though still creative. And the result is to die for."

PRH imprints shone in the Best Guerilla Campaign category with Sophie Painter winning for her work on Lowborn by Kerry Hudson and Beth Cockeram at Michael Joseph highly commended for My Lovely Wife by Samantha Downing.

The Secret Barrister and Paul Martinovic at Pan Macmillan won the Best Adult Non-Fiction Campaign, that saw the judges highly commend HarperCollins' Liv Marsden's campaign for How to Fail by Elizabeth Day (4th Estate). 

Egmont took home Young Adult Fiction Campaign for A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder by Holly Jackson. Hachette Children's Group's Natasha Whearity and Naomi Berwin were highly commended for Isles of Storm and Sorrow: Viper by Bex Hogan.

Children's went to Jill Kidson, Jo Humphries-Davies, Josh Alliston, James McParland at Walker for their work on the campaign for Malamander by Thomas Taylor. The judges said: "A wonderfully orchestrated campaign which brought the world of Eerie-on-Sea to life, with a brilliantly executed bookseller outreach, an excellently promoted, cinematic trailer, an Eerie-on-Sea Enquirer newspaper created in-house, an interactive map for the website, creative partnerships and POS."

Alex Cowan and Beth Maher at HarperCollins Children’s Books were highly commended for Starfell: Willow Moss and the Lost Day by Dominique Valente. 

The judges also awarded some BMS Spotlight Awards in some of the key judging areas. Ebury's Caroline Butler won Audience Development for How to Be Right by James O’Brien while Granta's Simon Heafield scooped the Creativity gong for Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata.

Jodie Mullish, Jess Duffy, Andy Joannou, Will Upton and Alex Ellis at Pan Mac imprint Bluebird Books won the Innovation category for Tin Can Cook by Jack Monroe.

The awards for April to June 2019 were revealed last night (Thursday 22nd August) at the quarterly BMS Members’ Meeting at the Havas KX Creative Agency.