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Hachette, HarperCollins and indies make the running on the 2024 British Book Awards
Hachette, HarperCollins, Penguin Random House and Bloomsbury lead The British Book Award shortlists for 2024 with strong showings across the lists: the groups are up for multiple awards with Hachette the pace-setter and HarperCollins the second biggest contingent, ahead of PRH and Bloomsbury. There is also a strong showing for indies such as Profile and Faber, both of which are up for Indie and overall Publisher of the Year.
For bookshops, the Book Retailer of the Year nominations include Waterstones, Bookshop.org, and the National Trust, with indies Brick Lane Bookshop, the Book Nook, Muswell Hill’s Children’s Bookshop and Sevenoaks Bookshop nominated across the categories.
For publishers, Hachette has numerous nods: both Little, Brown Book Group and Hodder & Stoughton are up for Publisher of the Year and across the Imprints category Bookouture, Monoray and Piatkus Fiction (all Hachette imprints) feature while Hachette Children’s Group is nominated for Children’s Publisher.
Among the indie-heavy shortlist, Bloomsbury is up for Publisher of the Year, Editor of the Year for Ellen Holgate and Children’s Publisher of the Year – its first appearance in the last category for six years. It is also vying for Academic, Educational and Professional Publisher of the Year, along with Export, Rights Professional and Marketing Strategy, with two nods in the Publicity Campaign category.
Meanwhile HarperCollins is also in contention for Publisher of the Year along with two Imprint nominations — for HQ and HarperNorth — the Export prize and two of its imprints for Marketing Strategy (Fourth Estate and The Borough Press). Kishani Widyaratna, Fourth Estate publishing director, and HQ’s Manpreet Grewal are both nominated for Editor. It is also up for Academic, Educational & Professional Publisher through Collins, and has nods in the Designer and Publicity categories.
Simon & Schuster has six shortlistings: it is chasing a third successive Publisher of the Year Award and is nominated for Imprint (for Gallery Books UK), Children’s Publisher, Marketing Strategy and Export while editorial director Molly Crawford is bidding for the Editor’s crown.
Penguin Random House is recognised across five categories: for Publisher of the Year (Ebury and Transworld) and Imprint for Cornerstone with Transworld’s long-time publisher Bill Scott-Kerr up for Editor along with three mentions for Marketing Strategy (#Merky Books, Ebury and Vintage), and two in Publicity Campaign.
Bonnier is well represented: with Ciara Lloyd, publishing director at Blink and John Blake, up for Editor of the Year as well as shortlistings for Export, Art Director (for Nick Stearn) and Rights Professional for Stella Giatrakou.
Other nominations in this category include David Fickling Books, Macmillan Children’s Books, Oneworld, Scholastic, Sweet Cherry and Usborne.
Pan Macmillan is nominated for Publisher of the Year as well as Imprint (for Pan), Export and Publicity Campaign.
Along with Bloomsbury’s many mentions, there is a strong indie showing with a prevalence for Profile as it rides high post-Murdle success: nominated for Publisher of the Year, Independent Publisher, Imprint (for Souvenir Press) and Marketing Strategy.
Fellow independent Faber is nominated for Publisher of the Year as well as Marketing Strategy, Export and Independent Publisher – in the last category it is joined by Boldwood Books, Granta and Swift Press among others. Additionally Oneworld is recognised: Juliet Mabey is in contention for Editor once again, seven years after she won the award, while the indie is also vying for Independent Publisher of the Year and Children’s Publisher.
The prizes also honour the industry’s best publicists, rights professionals and agents: including Curtis Brown’s Heritage department co-founders Becky Brown and Norah Perkins, Janklow & Nesbit’s Will Francis, YMU’s global managing director Amanda Harris and Chloe Seager, of the Madeleine Milburn Agency, among others.
Across the strong showing for bookshops, the Book Retailer of the Year nominations include Waterstones, Bookshop.org, National Trust, World of Books as well as LoveReading, Monwell and Books2Door. The Independent Bookshop shortlist was revealed earlier this month with Brick Lane Bookshop, the Book Nook and Book-ish among the contenders.
Meanwhile Muswell Hill’s Children’s Bookshop, which turns 50 this year, is one of six stores shortlisted for Children’s Bookshop of the Year along with Books2Door, Halfway Up the Stairs, Imagine Me Stories, Next Page Books and Sevenoaks Bookshop. Booksellers from Waterstones, The Bookshop on the Green, Forum Books and Afrori Books are also up for individual awards.
The winners will be announced at The British Book Awards ceremony at Grosvenor House, London, on 13th May 2024. For more information, visit the website.
The full shortlists can be viewed online here.
