As independently published authors continue to gain new ground with readers and retailers, they are also gaining new respect from the publishing industry as a whole. ForeWord Reviews, one of the premier entities for national reviews of independent works since 1998, has now announced its shortlist of finalists for its Book of the Year awards. Spanning sixty-two categories, the finalists were selected from over 1300 entries from small publishers and academic presses for the 2012 award.
While the award itself is a recognition of both the author and the publisher, it is actually librarians and booksellers who rely on the outcome of the judges’ decisions in order to find new authors whom they may have otherwise not discovered.
According to a press release yesterday from ForeWord Reviews, “Over the next two months, a panel of sixty judges, librarians and booksellers only, will determine the winners. Gold, Silver, and Bronze awards, as well as Editor’s Choice Prizes for Fiction and Nonfiction, will be announced at the American Library Association Annual Conference (ALA) in Chicago, Friday, June 28th at 6pm at The Pop Top Stage. Winners will also be announced on the ForeWord Reviews website, on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, and our weekly email newsletter, ForeWord This Week. The winners of the two Editor’s Choice Prizes will be awarded $1,500 each. ForeWord’s Independent Publisher of the Year will also be announced. More than 20,000 librarians and publishers attend ALA annually.”
For a complete list of the finalists for the upcoming award, visit botya.forewordreviews.com/finalists/2012/.
Mercy Pilkington is a Senior Editor for Good e-Reader. She is also the CEO and founder of a hybrid publishing and consulting company.