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The British Book Awards 2023 trade shortlists reveal those in contention for a Nibbie
Hachette leads the way in The British Book Awards 2023 trade shortlists with 15 nominations, with three of its divisions—Headline Publishing Group, Little, Brown Book Group, and the Orion Publishing Group—vying for Publisher of the Year. Bookouture, whose head of rights, Richard King, is up for Rights Professional of the Year, is shortlisted for Imprint of the Year.
Hachette Children’s Group is nominated for Children’s Publisher of the year and two Hachette editors are up for Editor of the Year. Three Hachette designers are also up for Designer of the Year, two campaigns are up for Publicity Campaign of the Year, and Hachette Children’s Group and Little,Brown are up for Marketing Strategy of the Year.
Penguin Random House and DK have received nine nominations, with Doubleday shortlisted for Imprint of the Year and Transworld and Viking in contention for best marketing strategy. As well as DK being up for the British Book Award for Export, Suzanne Dean, Vintage’s creative director, is up for Designer of the Year. PRH also has three campaigns shortlisted for Publicity Campaign of the Year.
HarperCollins, which is in contention for Publisher of the Year alongside Bloomsbury, DK, Headline, Little,Brown, the Orion Publishing Group, Simon & Schuster and Usborne, receives 11 nominations. Farshore is in the running to be named Children’s Publisher of the year, and three HarperCollins imprints are up for the Imprint of the Year award: Electric Monkey, HarperVoyager and HQ.
HarperCollins is also up for the Export award—alongside Atlantic Books, Bloomsbury, Bonnier, Canongate, DK, Pan Macmillan and Simon & Schuster. HarperVoyager editor Natasha Bardon is also in the running to be crowned Editor of the Year, while Jo Thomson, deputy art director for Fourth Estate and William Collins, is shortlisted for Designer of the Year. The Borough Press and HQ are vying for Marketing Strategy of the Year, while HarperFiction is up for the Publicity Campaign of the Year.
A wide selection of independents are also up for awards, with Bloomsbury up for Publisher of the Year among four other awards. Simon & Schuster is shortlisted for six awards, including Children’s Publisher of the Year and Publisher of the Year. Also vying for the overall Publisher of the Year prize is Usborne, which is also up for Children’s Publisher of the Year and whose rights team is up for the Rights Professional of the Year Award.
Up for Imprint of the Year alongside Electric Monkey, HarperVoyager, HQ, Bookouture and Raven Books is Bonnier’s Blink Publishing, PRH’s Doubleday, Oneworld’s Rock the Boat and Pan Macmillan’s Tor UK. In contention for the Export Prize, which celebrates publishers which “enjoyed getting back on the road after two years of on-off travel, and found creative ways to overcome the major logistical challenges and get their books to retailers and readers”, are Atlantic Books, Bonnier Books, DK and Pan Macmillan.
The Edinburgh Bookshop and Halfway Up the Stairs—also up for Children’s Bookseller of the Year—are among nine “superb” booksellers up for the Independent Bookshop of the Year Award, joined by Forum Books, Griffin Books, Mostly Books, Niche Comics Bookshop, Nomad Books, The Rabbit Hole and Storysmith.
The celebration of independence continues in the Independent Publisher of the Year category, which sees Canongate, Faber, The Folio Society, Hardie Grant Publishing, Harriman House, Joffe Books, Nosy Crow and Oneworld shortlisted. Individual booksellers from across the UK are also recognised in the Individual Bookseller category.
The industry’s best publicists, rights professionals and academic publishers are all recognised, and Agent of the Year is hotly contested, with the likes of Curtis Brown’s Felicity Blunt and Abi Fellows, senior agent at the Good Literary Agency, in the running.
This year the awards continue to find ways to increase exposure for the shortlisted titles. As in years past, media partners such as Scala Radio and MagicFM have been matched with individual shortlists to give bespoke coverage to each. TikTok joins as a partner this year, and will be supporting the Pageturner category. James Stafford, general manager for operations and marketing at TikTok UK and Nordics, said: “We hope that through our #BritishBookAwards partnership even more readers will get to discover these brilliant titles.” Marketing agency Tandem Collective has been engaged to amplify the book shortlists.
The British Book Awards will be held at Grosvenor House London from 5pm until late on 15th May. Alongside the in-person event there will be a livestream for those cannot be there in person. Table sales are now open. Please visit the website for more details.
