The Truth About Literary Prizes: Prestige, Politics, and Publicity
- David Salariya
- Apr 29
- 10 min read
Updated: May 2
And the Winner Is… Absolutely Everyone!
Once upon a time, winning a book prize was like spotting a unicorn in the library: rare, magical, and just a little bit smug. But these days? Step aside unicorns - book awards are multiplying faster than debut novels with "Girl" in the title. From the lofty Nobel to the delightfully ridiculous Diagram Prize for the Oddest Book Title. In 2008, more people voted for the Diagram Prize (8,500 votes) than Booker Prize (7,800). it seems every corner of publishing has its own glittering gong to hand out.
The Bookseller alone dishes out more prizes than a primary school sports day. And yes, I’ll own up - I’ve created one myself: the Stratford Salariya Children’s Book Prize. It turns out that once you start handing out awards, you get to feel noble, influential, and mildly philanthropic, all while sipping warm wine at ceremonies.
But what does this avalanche of accolades actually mean? Are we celebrating excellence -or just addicted to applause? Is this the golden age of meritocracy, or have we turned literature into a literary version of Britain’s Got Talent?
In this post, I'll look into the world of book prizes - how they shape publishing, careers, and sales - and then zoom out to look at our wider cultural obsession with giving things a shiny badge. Welcome to the peculiar world of Prize Culture: where the competition is fierce, the shortlists are long, and the trophies are sometimes shaped like a cheese grater.
What This Blog on Literary Awards Covers
Why literary awards are multiplying like plot twists in a Dickens novel
How book prizes influence publishers, writers, and bookshops
The real-world effects on authors' reputations and sales
Examples of major and minor prizes in both adult and children’s publishing
The rise of global “prize culture” and its impact on creativity
Who really benefits: authors, readers, sponsors, or the awards themselves?
Literary Awards
In recent decades, literary awards have multiplied like rabbits at a writers' retreat. From the mighty Nobel to niche local awards from primary schools, there's now a gong for nearly every genre, demographic, and dust jacket design. Children’s publishing has joined the fray too, with prizes like the Bookseller’s YA Book Prize and (ahem) the Stratford Salariya Children’s Book Prize offering hopeful new creators their moment in the spotlight.
Once a rarefied honour, the literary award is now a marketing strategy, a career-launcher, and sometimes, a glorious excuse for a free glass of prosecco. Publishers time launches around prize deadlines. Authors add “award-winning” to their bios quicker than you can say “longlist.”
A Win Means Validation
And who can blame them? A win means validation, visibility, and often a healthy boost in sales. Bernardine Evaristo saw her Booker-winning novel Girl, Woman, Other surge 1,340% in sales in just five days. Even modest regional awards can deliver big results-winners of the Western States Book Awards reportedly saw post-win sales boosts of 40% to 500%.
Even being shortlisted can elevate an author's profile and sales. In children's publishing, a Newbery Medal or Carnegie Medal can lock a title into the curriculum for decades. For publishers, literary awards are more than laurels - they influence acquisitions, release schedules, and marketing plans. Books with “prize potential” often get extra love from editorial and publicity departments.
Validation can help with Foreign Sales, or book shops stocking a book.
Why So Many Prizes?
A few key reasons:
Recognition gaps – New prizes often emerge to spotlight underrepresented voices: women, writers of colour, LGBTQ+ authors, indie presses.
Marketing and visibility – Awards translate aesthetic value into economic gain. A win sells books. A shortlist still gets stickered.
Cultural capital – Countries, corporations, and festivals use prizes to associate themselves with excellence and soft power.
Spectacle and content – Award ceremonies generate media coverage and feel-good stories. In an age of attention, they’re cultural currency.
This leads to what writer James English, in his book The Economy of Prestige, called a “feverish proliferation” of awards. Wikipedia lists nearly 50 UK-based fiction prizes alone.
Why So Many from The Bookseller?
The Bookseller runs several (many), including the British Book Awards (the “Nibbies”), the YA Book Prize, and the cheeky Diagram Prize for Oddest Book Title (my favourite). In short: barely a week passes without a shortlist.
The Bookseller as Award Factory
The Bookseller has become a kind of award factory - not just for fun, but with shrewd business sense positioning itself as more than a trade magazine - it becomes a tastemaker. These awards elevate its brand from commentator to gatekeeper, giving it disproportionate influence over which authors, publishers, and trends receive attention.
Influence: Awards make them more than a trade magazine; they become tastemakers.
Content: Each award generates months of coverage - shortlists, features, interviews, ceremony recaps, podcasts.
Sponsorship: Prizes attract sponsors and partners, creating income and brand alliances.
Events: The British Book Awards are major publishing events, complete with ticket sales, PR opportunities, and photoshoots.
Search visibility: Every winner announcement drives web traffic and SEO growth.
Community engagement: Niche prizes (like for YA or retail excellence) allow them to touch every corner of the industry.
Brand identity: Launching awards focused on innovation, diversity, and design reinforces The Bookseller as an industry champion.
It's a model of editorial meets enterprise - and it works.
Who Benefits - and How?
Certainly authors. Recognition can catapult emerging voices into the mainstream. Winning a Women’s Prize for Fiction or a Costa Book Award has become a career-defining achievement. Prizes like the International Booker (which splits its award between author and translator) also celebrate the team effort behind translated literature.
Publishers benefit too. A prize win justifies additional promotion, secures bookstore placement, and enhances backlist sales. A prize badge becomes a trusted quality marker for readers unsure what to pick.
There’s also a direct market impact: many prizes lead to sharp sales spikes. The Booker Prize often results in the famed “Booker bounce.” In the US, the Pulitzer or National Book Award can push titles onto bestseller lists. Even lesser-known awards frequently result in a 40% to 500% increase in sales.
Prizes also shape industry priorities. Publishers might pursue titles that seem “prize-worthy”- books with literary heft or tackling topical issues. This can encourage ambitious work, but also reinforce trends and safe bets.
Celebrating certain narratives
Prize culture also influences social values by celebrating certain narratives. Awards often carry an implicit endorsement: by elevating specific stories or achievements, they signal what society admires. This can be very positive when, for example, a prize highlights a novel about a marginalised community or a breakthrough solution to a humanitarian problem. Yet it can also send problematic signals if, say, prize choices consistently overlook particular groups or favour a narrow type of story. The controversy around the 2019 Booker Prize split (awarding the prize jointly to Margaret Atwood and Bernardine Evaristo) touched on such issues: some felt that having Evaristo (the first Black woman to ever win the Booker) share the prize diminished what should have been a singular recognition for a historically overlooked group.
Where Can You Learn More?
If you're a writer, publisher, or curious reader, the following are excellent resources for navigating the prize landscape:
The Bookseller – For ongoing news, shortlists, and commentary on UK prizes.
Prize information on Wikipedia – A useful overview of major and minor prizes by country or category.
James English’s The Economy of Prestige – A seminal academic work analysing the cultural economy of awards.
Words and Pictures magazine (SCBWI UK) – For insights into children’s book prizes.
Publishers Weekly and Kirkus Reviews – For US-centric prize announcements, reviews, and analysis.
BookTrust – Lists current and past winners of children’s book awards and provides reading guides.
Beyond Books: The Global Prize Obsession
This isn’t just a literary phenomenon. We now have awards for chefs (Michelin stars), architects (Pritzker Prize), corporations (sustainability accolades), and even teachers (Global Teacher Prize). The Nobel Prize, established in 1901, helped launch the modern era of international recognition. By the mid-20th century, award ceremonies became staples of cultural life - think Oscars, Emmys, and yes, the Booker.
Awards can:
Encourage aspiration – Set a standard or ambition for creators.
Act as filters – Help audiences navigate an overwhelming volume of content.
Serve philanthropic goals – Promote reading, literacy, diversity, or peace.
Yet they come with trade-offs. Critics worry about conformity, industry groupthink, and the psychological toll of chasing validation. Some authors, like Jean-Paul Sartre, famously declined major awards to preserve independence.
What’s the Fix?
Suggestions include:
More diverse juries – Broaden perspectives and reduce bias.
Transparent criteria – Clarify what’s being rewarded.
More niche and purpose-driven prizes – Like the Republic of Consciousness Prize, which supports small presses as well as authors.
Prizes can also evolve. Some now include reader votes, shared winnings (e.g., author and translator), or multiple winners to avoid the binary of “one best.”
#PrizeCulture: An Unstoppable Trend?
So, are book prizes a blessing or just a beautifully bound popularity contest? Like most things in publishing, the answer is “it depends” - on who's judging, who's funding, and whether your book happened to feature a plucky orphan, a dystopian government, or a talking dog that teaches mindfulness. At their best, awards shine a light into dusty corners, lifting up unheard voices and launching careers. At their worst, they’re echo chambers with engraved plaques and publishing lovees.
The Bad Sex in Fiction Award
Organised by The Literary Review (since 1993), the Bad Sex in Fiction Award is perhaps the most eyebrow-raising - and thigh-slapping - prize in the literary world. Its aim? To draw attention to “poorly written, redundant or awkward passages of sexual description in modern fiction,” and to discourage authors from including “unnecessary” sex scenes.
Think of it as the anti-Booker: instead of reverent prestige, it doles out gleeful embarrassment - served with a glass of claret and a raised eyebrow.
A Few Memorable Winners:
Alan Titchmarsh was shortlisted (2007) for some particularly lush metaphors - though he never won. One judge reportedly said: “We were tickled by his clematis, but not enough.”
Melvyn Bragg (1993) was the inaugural recipient for A Time to Dance - a florid passage that mixed choreography with coitus.
Nicholas Royle (2013) won for First Novel, which included the line:“He lightly kissed her breasts, he licked the skin around her nipples, he bit her nipples and tugged at the little ring through the left one with his teeth...”Judges said it had “all the lyricism of a drunk man dribbling into a pillow.”
Morrissey (yes, that Morrissey) won in 2015 for List of the Lost, which featured the unforgettable phrase:“...they rolled together into one giggling snowball of full-figured copulation.”
Why this Matters (Even If It’s Silly in a very British Carry-on Film way...)
Although tongue-in-cheek, the prize is rooted in a real critique: that sex scenes, when badly written, distract, discredit, or unintentionally parody themselves. It also punctures the literary pomposity surrounding prize culture - a kind of leveller for the over-serious.
A Final Word (From a Repeat Offender)
Of course, I’m hardly impartial. Over the years I’ve been lucky enough to have a few gongs of my own gather dust on the shelf - IPG Children’s Publisher of the Year, multiple Times Educational Supplement Awards for Non-Fiction, British Book Design Awards for the X Ray Picture Book series and A Very Peculiar History, and many more. These were lovely surprises at the time, though I suspect the trophies were slightly shinier than I was. Still, if we must live in a world awash with prizes, let’s at least be honest about what they are: part recognition, part ritual, part marketing magic - and entirely human in their messy, glittering imperfection.
One Last Slice of Prize Culture…I promise!
While the Booker may bask in televised fanfare and the Bad Sex Award enjoys tabloid titillation, let me close with a humbler but no less memorable prize moment. When An Egyptian Pyramid (from The Inside Story series) won the Times Educational Supplement Award, the ceremony was held at the still-new Barbican Centre - a fortress of avant-garde ambition and high-minded acoustics.
What was served to us at 11:00 a.m.? Claret? Champagne? Canapés? No. We were offered mediera cake and a glass of sherry.
Summing up everything about British prize-giving: formal but faintly absurd, earnest yet dryly comic. A slice of mediera at the altar of publishing. One part honour, one part sponge.
Authors Who Declined Literary Awards
Jean-Paul Sartre (1964) – Declined the Nobel Prize for Literature. Sartre believed that a writer should not allow himself to be turned into an institution or receive honours from institutions.
Boris Pasternak (1958) – Initially accepted the Nobel Prize for Doctor Zhivago but was forced by Soviet authorities to decline it under pressure.
Thomas Pynchon – Famously reclusive, he refused several literary awards in person but sometimes allowed publishers to accept on his behalf.
Sinéad Morrissey – Declined the Forward Prize for Best Collection in 2002 because she felt the poems had been rushed and unfinished (though she later won it in 2013).
John le Carré – Requested that his name be withdrawn from consideration for the 2020 Booker Prize longlist, though he had been nominated by judges without his prior knowledge.
Authors (and Others) Who Declined British Honours (MBE, OBE, CBE, Knighthood, etc.)
Alan Bennett – Declined a CBE in 1988, saying "it's the way the country is run that makes you not want to accept it."
Roald Dahl – Turned down an OBE in 1986 because he wanted a knighthood instead - and was annoyed when it wasn’t offered.
Graham Greene – Declined a knighthood in 1956, reportedly because he didn’t want to be associated with the establishment.
E.M. Forster – Declined a knighthood in 1949, though he accepted a Companion of Honour later (a more intellectual, less establishment-linked award).
Philip Larkin – Refused a position as Poet Laureate after the death of Sir John Betjeman (though he did consider it for a time).
David Bowie – Declined both a CBE (2000) and a knighthood (2003), saying, "I would never have any intention of accepting anything like that. I seriously don’t know what it’s for."
Why People Refuse Prizes and Honours
The reasons vary, but common themes include:
A desire for independence from institutions or political systems.
Opposition to imperialism or class systems (especially relevant for honours from government through royalty).
Discomfort with turning creative or political work into a competitive or nationalist spectacle.
Personal humility - or sometimes pure stubbornness or disappointment at not getting a higher award..."where's my knighhood" screamed "Veruca Salt".
Global Talent: arts and culture prizes
Explore the Complete Booker Prize Archive
Looking to dig deeper into the legacy of the Booker Prize? Whether you're a curious reader, aspiring author, or publishing aficionado, the official archive is your go-to resource for every winner, shortlist, and literary controversy since 1969.
The Official Booker Prize Library
From Naipaul to Atwood, Banville to Karunatilaka - see who made the cut, who caused a stir, and how the prize has shaped the literary landscape across decades
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