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By Robert Nagle

Sarah Edmonds reveals this remarkable fact about the upcoming Nobel Prize for literature:

The short list for the 10 million Swedish crown ($1.54 million) prize is closely guarded and the winner is often a surprise — sometimes obscure enough to send reporters and literary scholars scurrying to reference books or the Internet.

But Ladbrokes has called it right for three years running with the leader in its wagering winning the Nobel, including last year’s winner, Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk.

The current odds seem to favor Phillip Roth, an outcome I would find surprising. (Thanks, Literary Saloon).

How likely is it for an ebook or a POD book to snag a major literary award?

  • National Book Award explicitly allows submission of ebooks (but it says, “Self-published books and e-books are eligible, provided that the author/publisher also publishes titles by other authors…” Would this apply to people who publish on mobipocket?)
  • Pulitzer doesn’t allow ebooks except when the work “…was first published in the United States during the year and made available in hardcover or bound paperback form for purchase by the general public.”
  • National Book Critics Circle award allows publishers to submit their own book (as long as they submit 24 copies of the print book). Interestingly, because committee members have the ability to recommend/nominate certain books, theoretically they could recommend ebooks as well.
  • The Hugo Awards (a sci fi award) allows nominations by paying members:

    The definition of what is “professional” work is left up to the voters. (Until recently, it was based on whether the publication had a net press run of at least 10,000 copies; however, the rise of electronic publication and the number of obviously professional small press publications with press runs of less than 10,000 copies led WSFS to stop attempting to define “professional” in a technical sense. Instead, the voters decide whether they think a work or person qualifies as “professional” or not.)

  • The Nebula Award doesn’t have any ebook-unfriendly rules per se, but it has a strange rule against self-nomination: “Works may not be recommended by their authors, editors, publishers, or any other party with a monetary interest in the work.“
  • The Man Booker Awards allow established imprints to submit electronic versions of books to be submitted, but only on the condition that submit print versions later. They also have a strict ban against self-published works.

This is just a sampling from the major awards. Fortunately, the U.S. has lots of literary awards, especially for genre fiction and short stories. And many notable literary awards (such as the Rauxa Prize for short erotic fiction) are perfectly fine with electronic submissions.

John Barth, Brain Taylor portrait,
John Barth (an ex-teacher of mine who racked up a National Book award prize) had this to say about award-giving:

In a letter to the Duke of Weimar, Goethe said, “I am convinced that it is almost as immodest to refuse a high distinction as stubbornly to strive to attain it.” I agree, despite the capriciousness and ephemerality of such distinctions. We all share the Tragic View of Literary Prizes; yet it would be boring if there were none, and it is more agreeable to shrug them off, having won them. A worthwhile literary prize, in my estimation, is one that on occasion will be awarded to a writer despite the fact that he or she deserves it.

(see also: more fun excerpts from NBA acceptance speeches).

One can debate whether it’s worthwhile to bestow awards on the basis of literary merit. (Sidenote: has anyone noticed that getting picked as the winner on ABC’s Bachelor TV show still has not resulted in a single successful marriage?) On the other hand, awards are great at creating buzz. Here are some unique challenges in running a prize for ebooks:

  1. Settling on a neutral story platform for reading. Eventually, I guess ebook publishers will distribute an ebook in all available formats. But economics and limited resources determine which kinds of conversions are to be done. (And remember, each platform has their own strengths and weaknesses).
  2. Grassroots nomination vs. shortlists. People have a hard enough time reading print books. No one can read everything or even a small fraction of the available works for a particular year. Limits have to be set. As great as some critics are, there are intractable reasons why certain kinds of books or ebooks don’t attract a critic’s attention (as Rebecca Skloot has shown). Digg-type content filtering systems have their own biases, but they are decent at identifying a certain amount of interesting content. Some sort of open nomination/voting system should be used to create a long list which can be whittled down to a shorter list and eventually a more palatable short list for the judges. One blog-bestowed literary prize used a single elimination tournament format to match novels against one another until a victor emerged. Three judges read the same two novels and voted on the book which would advance to the next round.
  3. Separating nominees into categories by length and genre. Nowadays, ebooks are taking off in certain genres, but not for others. It seems better to have a specialized prize for a genre with many ebooks than to attempt a general one that encompasses multiple genres.
  4. Awards ceremonies. Given this age of Second Life and webcams, it seems ridiculous not to have an awards ceremony, even if the winner lives in Zambia.
  5. Award as publication/Sponsored awards. Several poetry competitions award publication of the first place winner. This is a perfectly acceptable way to give a prize and often an important distinction. If Yale U. or Oxford U. Press published a creative literary work, chances are it will be interesting. If Baen gave a yearly award to the Best Novel by a Young Writer, that would actually mean a lot to readers.

So do ebooks need awards to recognize writers (and the politicking that accompanies it)? The smaller the literary award, the more susceptible it will be to bias and favoritism). Does that mean ebook prizes will always be inferior to awards for print books? Are awards are a necessary evil? Or do they trivialize the process of literary judgment? Ebooks reflect a change in how we read and appreciate literature; does that mean we still need awards to recognize greatness?

 
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