Special Topics Paper: Literary Awards

*My paper is way too long for this post, so I will include segments*

Literary Award Definition:

           Have you ever noticed on a book that sometimes there are little gold or silver stickers on the lower side of the book?  Usually that indicates it won a literary award.  So what exactly is a literary award?

"A literary award is an award presented in recognition of a particularly lauded literary piece or body of work. It is normally presented to an author.  Most literary awards come with a corresponding award ceremony. Many awards are structured with one organization (usually a non-profit organization) as the presenter and public face of the award, and another organization as the financial sponsor or backer, who pays the prize remuneration and the cost of the ceremony and public relations, typically a corporate sponsor who may sometimes attach their name to the award" (Literary Award, 2015).

When a book receives an award, it is a symbol meaning they have been recognized for being a really good book.  The author is recognized for creating a true work of art.  Usually a literary award is rewarded annually, unless something happens and they have to cancel.  There have been some occasions that has occurred. 

            There are all kinds of literary awards.  Mostly in genres, like Fiction, Non-Fiction, Science Fiction, etc. 

"There are also awards dedicated to works in individual languages, e.g. the Miguel de Cervantes Prize (Spanish), and the Camões Prize (Portuguese), and the Man Booker Prize, the Pulitzer Prize, and the Hugo Awards (English).  Some of the most notable literary prizes include the Nobel Prize in Literature, the Franz Kafka Prize and the Jerusalem Prize.  There are also spoof awards, such as The Literary Review Bad Sex in Fiction Award, the Bookseller/Diagram Prize for Oddest Title of the Year, and the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction and Lyttle Lytton Contests, which are both given to deliberately bad sentences" (2015).

           The truth is there are so many awards in literature.  It is hard to keep track of how many literary awards there are.  But the one thing that is very true is when a book is awarded, it is recognized for its creativity and having an impact on its readers.

Major Literary Awards: Nobel Prize in Literature

            

It is true there are so many literary awards, but there is a category of being the most major awards in literature.  Some of them include:  Booker Prize, Caldecott Medal, National Book Award, National Book Critics Circle Award, Newbery Medal, Nobel Prize for Literature, PEN/Faulkner Award, Pulitzer Prize, Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, and the EMMA Awards (Book Awards, 1997-2016). 

            The award I should talk about is the Nobel Prize for Literature.  “‘The said interest shall be divided into five equal parts, which shall be apportioned as follows: /- - -/ one part to the person who shall have produced in the field of literature the most outstanding work in an ideal direction ...’” (Nobel Prize, 2014).  This is an excerpt from the will of Alfred Nobel, whom the Nobel Award is named after.  This is considered huge if an author is awarded a Nobel Prize because they will be known as a Nobel Laureate. 

             How the nomination process works is like this:  The award is usually awarded by the Swedish Academy in Sweden.  The Nobel Committee sends out nomination notices and letters to those who qualify to nominate, usually past laureates, university professors, members of the Swedish Academy, and presidents of literature socialites.  The notices are sent out in September to about 600+ individuals and organizations.  February is when the deadline for nominations is due.  The preliminary candidates are chosen in April (around 15-20 names) and May is when the final candidates are chosen (about 5 names).  In the summer, the Academy evaluates the works, and prepares individual reports about the work.  September is when they get together and select the merits for the selected works.  In October, the Nobel Laureates are voted, chosen and announced.  On December 10 in Stockholm, Sweden, the newly Nobel Laureates receive their Nobel Medal and Diploma, and a document confirming the prize amount at the Nobel Prize Award Ceremony (Nomination and Selection of Literature Laureates, 2014). 

"At the Nobel Prize Award Ceremony in Stockholm, Sweden, on 10 December, presentation speeches extoll the Nobel Laureates and their discovery or work, after which His Majesty the King of Sweden hands each Laureate a diploma and a medal. The event is followed by the Nobel Banquet, with 1,300 guests, held at the Blue Hall of the Stockholm City Hall since 1934" (Ceremonies Archive, 2014).
Some Laureates include: Ernest Hemingway, John Steinbeck, Toni Morrison, Albert Camus, and our recent Laureate, Svetlana Alexievich.

            The Nobel Prize in Literature is a major literary award, usually awarded to the authors rather than the books.  The authors are recognized for their courage in writing, mastery in art and narratives, and mastery in creating works of pure genius. 

Crime/Mystery/Thriller Awards: The Edgar Award
             Some awards in this category include: Agatha Award, Edgar Award, Macavity Award, and the Shamus Award (Book Award, 1997-2016).  I’ll focus on the Edgar Award since this may be an award not very many people have heard of before.

            The Edgar Award, in honor of Edgar Allan Poe, is presented by The Mystery Writers of America to the best in mystery fiction and nonfiction produced the previous year. Awards are made in various categories, including Best novel, Best first novel by an American author, Best fact crime and Best short story. The first Edgar was awarded in 1954 (The Edgar Award, 2016).

           This sounds like an interesting award since Edgar Allen Poe is one of the darkest writers in the Literature world.  So what are the guidelines for this award?

"All books, short stories and television shows in the mystery, crime, suspense, and intrigue fields are eligible for Edgar Awards in their respective category if they were published or produced for the first time in the U.S. during the 2016 calendar year. Books from non-U.S. publishers are eligible if they are widely distributed in the U.S. and are readily available on the shelves in brick-and-mortar stores for the first time during 2016" (“Special order” titles would not qualify) (Edgar Award Category Information, 2016).

            Unfortunately, there is not a lot of information about the process and when these awards are awarded, but they are awarded annually.  Past winners include William Bayer for Peregrine, James Lee Burke for Cimarron Rose, and last year’s winner, Stephen King for Mr. Mercedes.  I admit I am not a big fan of this category, but there are a lot of people who like Mystery Thrillers.  This award is one I have never heard of before, and it is amazing there is such an award in honor of Edgar Allen Poe.  Plus, the Edgar Head Trophy looks really interesting.  I have never heard of an award in the shape of a head before.

Fiction/Poetry Awards: Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction

            Awards listed in this category include: American Book Awards, Audie Awards, Black Caucus of the ALA Literary Awards, Booker Prize, Bread Loaf Bakeless Prize, Costa Book Awards, Governor General's Literary Awards, Guardian First Book Award, International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, Kiriyama Pacific Rim Book Prize, Lambda Literary Awards, Lannan Literary Awards, Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize, Minnesota Book Awards, National Book Award, National Book Critics Circle Award, Scott O'Dell Historical Fiction Award, PEN/Faulkner Award, PEN/Hemingway Award, Pulitzer Prize, Reference and User Services Association Awards, Thurber Prize, Betty Trask Award, and the Walt Whitman Award (Book Award, 1997-2016).  The award I will talk about is not listed: the Baileys Women’s Prize.  "Launched in 1996, the Prize is awarded annually and celebrates excellence, originality and accessibility in women’s writing from throughout the world. The winner receives a cheque for £30,000 and a limited edition bronze known as a ‘Bessie’, created by the artist Grizel Niven. Both are anonymously endowed". (Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction, 2015).  [Over 33,000 dollars]

             It is great to see there is an award that strictly goes to females.  It is quite rare.  Here is how the judging works:

"Every June, a panel of five women, all passionate readers and at the top of their respective professions, choose the winner of the BAILEYS Women’s Prize for Fiction.  The whole process starts early autumn of the previous year. Booktrust — the Prize administrators — invites UK publishers to submit eligible books, while the Prize Director (Harriet Hastings) approaches potential judges.  Judges are appointed by the end of the year and plunge immediately into reading their allotted books, before meeting to decide the longlist, the shortlist and — shortly before the Award Ceremony — the winner.  The judges are given the key criteria for the Prize – accessibility, originality and excellence in writing by women. They are asked to forget about reviews, publicity spends, an author’s previous reputation, the sense of ‘who deserves it’ and choose simply on the basis of novels that inspire them, move them, make them think – and that they admire and enjoy" (Judging, 2015)!

          An award designed for women, judged by women, and awarded to women is unlike anything I have ever heard of before.  Plus, the award is called a “Bessie.”  Winners include: Kate Grenville for The Idea of Perfection, Tea Obreht for The Tiger’s Wife, and last year’s winner, Ali Smith for How to Be Both.

"The inspiration was the Booker Prize of 1991 when none of the six shortlisted books was by a woman, despite some 60% of novels published that year being by female authors.  A group of women and men working in the industry – authors, publishers, agents, booksellers, librarians, journalists – therefore met to discuss the issue.  Research showed that women’s literary achievements were often not acknowledged by the major literary prizes.  The idea for the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction – previously the Orange Prize for Fiction – was born" (FAQ, 2015).

Book Sales: Up or Down?

         So with all of these awards and medals given to the author and their works, does that have a big significant sales increase or does it stay the same?  I have always wondered when a book gets recognized, do people become more aware of its existence?  Or is it just for a while the book becomes known and then it dies down once more books become known? 

        Sometimes when a book is recognized, there could be some who go on television to do interviews about the book, like the Oprah Winfrey show where she sometimes talks about her favorite books in the Oprah Book Club.  There could also be posts online about the specific book and to encourage people to purchase it, which could lead to spikes in book sales.  According to Smith (2009), that is what happened to Christopher Curtis, whose book Bud, Not Buddy won both the Newbery Medal and the Coretta Scott Key Author Award in 2000. 

"After Mr. Curtis, who lives in Windsor, Ontario, won this week, the book jumped from 5,400th to fifth on the Amazon.com best-seller list. ‘It was above all the Harry Potter books,’ said the author with amazement in his voice as he sat over lunch at the Millennium Broadway Hotel in New York. Mr. Curtis said he never set out to write a young adults' book. All that has ever mattered to him, he said, was to tell a story" (p. B9).

That is incredible.  Going from 5,400 to 5 just after he won.  That shows how big a book can go on a list just after winning a major award, or in this case, two major awards.  Now what about another award?  In Vicky Smith (2013), “The ‘Caldecott Effect,’” it states:

"While it is now a given that Caldecott Medal and honor books experience a rush immediately following the announcement of the winners, sometimes occasioning an embarrassing delay in acquisition for those libraries that did not have the foresight to correctly predict and order them, it is also true that sales tail off over time. Some individual titles have become perennial favorites and continue to perform strongly, but as a whole, the older a Caldecott winner is, the more subdued its sales are" (p. 10-11).

This does make sense.  When a book is honored, there is a rush in book sales and libraries are sometimes asked to put holds on specific books.  Just how big is the book sales?  In 2012, Nielsen BookScan did a scan on book sales, and this is what they discovered to Fiction writer Louise Erdrich: 

"Fiction winner Louise Erdrich's The Round House (Harper) sold 30,000 of its 47,000 copies since its victory, according to Nielsen BookScan. In its first week after winning, the book saw a 143% increase at outlets tracked by BookScan, going from 2,000 copies sold to 5,000 copies sold. Since its win, Erdrich's novel has steadily kept increasing in weekly sales, moving 9,000 copies for the week ending December 9" (Measuring the National Book Award Sales Effect, 2012).

            This just shows how huge a spike in book sales and go.  When a book has a stamp of approval, people become more aware and they would want to read it too.  There have been times when I have heard of a book winning some kind of award and I would try to find it at my public library or if I was brave enough, I would buy it at a book store.  Most of the time, it has turned out that I made a good decision.  According to Ewart (2011), “Book Awards – do they stimulate sales?”, she stated “The increased sales for a prize winning title may rest on which part of the book’s sales cycle it is in when it receives the award, Geoff [Walker] believes. ‘If it has been on the market for 18 months when it receives a prize, the sales may not lift much’” (Ewart, 2011).  I would have never thought of that because the longer the book is displayed, the bigger chance the book will downside in sales.  “In essence, winning prizes enhances the reputation of a book and brings it to wider public attention. But sales will only reflect the wider appeal of any prize winning fiction or nonfiction title” (2011).  I guess it all depends on what the book is and what it is about that will determine if it will sell or not, despite winning a major award, or any kind of award in that matter.

"While an initial Caldecott bump in sales comes from two sources - libraries and consumers - with the exception of those perennial favorites, when older Caldecott titles sell, it is primarily to libraries. Nielsen BookScan data reveal negligible retail sales of most older titles, but many of the librarians surveyed express either a personal or institutional determination to keep their Caldecott winners in their collections" (Smith, 2013, 10).

Conclusions:
           
             As it turns out, there are so many literary awards, I could not find a specific number.  But what I did find was the literary awards are usually divided into different categories, ranging from genres, language, and even spoofs.  I noticed there are a couple of genres where the same awards are listed, so that could mean they fall into many other categories besides just one.  The process of deciding who wins can take many months and there are usually a step-by-step process of how to determine those winners.  It is usually a yearly process and each medal is given at different days.  There is usually an award ceremony where they are presented with their medals and give speeches about their works. I like that most authors receive a medal and some kind of money reward.  Some just get a statue and public awareness, or there could be a chance they just get awareness and a magnum of champagne (which is better than nothing). 

"It has long been understood that the Randolph Caldecott Medal is one of the two brass rings of the children's literature world. The lucky illustrator who grabs it wins both literary immortality and a better-than-average royalty check for the foreseeable future. Less immediately, he or she joins a continuum of excellence that rewards the creation of excellent narrative art for an audience historically undervalued by society as a whole" (Smith, 2013, 9). 

           Authors work very hard to create books people would want to enjoy reading.  They spend many months working on something worthwhile and there comes that once-in-a-lifetime chance where one of their works is recognized and they are rewarded for that hard work.  Each medal is different and there are all kinds of literary awards, but the one thing that is definitely true for all of the literary awards is each author is accepted into a class where authors before them have been where they have been. 

·         As mentioned before, there are hundreds of literary awards.  For a full list (though not complete) of American awards, as well as awards in other countries and languages can be found on Wikipedia at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_literary_awards

Resources:
Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction.  (2015).  Retrieved February 25, 2016 from http://www.womensprizeforfiction.co.uk/
Book Awards.  (1997-2016).  Retrieved February 25, 2016 from http://www.bookspot.com/awards/
Ceremonies Archive.  (2014).  Retrieved February 25, 2016 from http://www.nobelprize.org/ceremonies/archive/Edgar Award Category Information.  (2016).  Retrieved February 25, 2016 from http://mysterywriters.org/edgars/edgar-award-category-information/

Ewart, J.  (2011).  Book Awards - do they stimulate sales?  Retrieved February 25, 2016 from http://www.booksellers.co.nz/book-news/trade-news/book-awards-%E2%80%93-do-they-stimulate-sales

FAQ.  Retrieved February 25, 2016 from http://www.womensprizeforfiction.co.uk/about/faq

Judging.  Retrieved February 25, 2016 from http://www.womensprizeforfiction.co.uk/about/judging

Literary Awards.  (2015).  Retrieved February 25, 2016 from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literary_award

Measuring the National Book  Award Sales Effect.  Retrieved February 25, 2016 from http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/publisher-news/article/55139-measuring-the-national-book-award-sales-effect.html

Nobel Prize.  (2014).  Retrieved February 25, 2016 from http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/

Nomination and Selection of Literature Laureates.  (2014).  Retrieved February 25, 2016 from http://www.nobelprize.org/nomination/literature/

Smith, D.  (2000).  "From Assembly Line to Book Awards."  New York Times, 149(51275), B9.

Smith, V.  (2013).  "The 'Caldecott Effect.'"  Children & Libraries: The Journal of the Association for Library Service to Children,  11(1), 9-13. 

The Edgar Award.  Retrieved February 25, 2016 from http://www.bookprizeinfo.com/showprize.php?prize=22