Publisher of the Year Nosy Crow wins hat-trick of prizes at IPG awards

Nosy Crow has picked up three prizes at the IPG Independent Publishing Awards, including the top prize of Independent Publisher of the Year.

The children's press, which receives the top billing for the second time, was applauded for its remarkable growth, sales in the UK and overseas, and its response to the challenges of the pandemic. It also took the Children’s Publisher of the Year category for the sixth time as well as the Deanta International Award.

“Even by its own high standards, Nosy Crow had an exceptional year,” the judges said. “They know exactly what they want to achieve and how to go about it. Everything they do is professional and passionate."

Commenting on the Independent Publisher of the Year award, head of sales and marketing at the press Catherine Stokes said: "Thank you again, I don't think any of us expected this. It means so much - we'd like to give a big thank you to all our crows." 

Stokes, pictured centre, with host Eshaan Akbar and Clays sales director Vicky Ellis 

Nosy Crow was one of five companies on the shortlist. It was joined there by Bloomsbury Publishing, which received the Paperback Shop Trade Publisher of the Year; Class Publishing, which scooped PLS Academic and Professional Publisher of the Year; Brilliant Publications, which won the Westchester Education Services Education Publisher of the Year; and David & Charles, the 2021 IPG Specialist Consumer Publisher of the Year.

Accepting the award, Bloomsbury c.e.o. Nigel Newton said: "Thank you all very much for this - thank you to our very resilient staff at Bloomsbury. Isn't it great to reflect on how lucky the book trade has been - we've been winners in the pandemic. It's been lucky too there's been a great surge in reading. I think of the escapism and joy that all of us together have brought to people holed up at home during the horrible pandemic."

Magic Cat Publishing was the recipient of the Nick Robinson Newcomer Award less than two years after launching. Elsewhere, Pluto Press received the IPG Marketing Award, its first IPG award, SAGE Publishing the Alison Morrison Diversity Award and Cambridge University Press the IPG Sustainability Award. Highly Commended in the Alison Morrison Diversity was Emerald Publishing.

Completing the list of winners were Shanon Rademacher of Class Publishing, the educational healthcare press, who was named The Bookseller Young Independent Publisher of the Year, and website developer Bookswarm, which received the GBS Services to Independent Publishers Award. Of the 32 companies on the shortlists, 13 were making their first appearances at the awards.

Commenting on her award, Rademacher paid tribute to paramedics and NHS workers. "I'm grateful to those people everyday," she said. "So, yes, thank you to my colleagues, but also thank you to those people whose acts hold our world together." 

All the winners were celebrated during an awards lunch at the Oxo Tower Brasserie in London on 21st September, in a ceremony hosted by author and comedian Eshaan Akbar.  

IPG c.e.o. Bridget Shine said: “Huge congratulations to all our 2021 Independent Publishing Awards and to everyone who made the shortlists. These are outstanding businesses and talented people who showed independent publishers at their resilient, creative and agile best in 2020, and they inspire us all. After more than a year and a half without live events, it has been a thrill to celebrate their success in person.”