Diverse Book Awards
Helen Lewis and Abiola Bello have been working on a new project for this year – here they explain their hopes for the Diverse Book Awards, what they mean for authors, and why the UK is playing catch-up with the US.
THE Diverse Book Awards were created to celebrate the fifth anniversary of The Author’s School – and both Abiola and Helen say the need to celebrate diversity in publishing is long overdue. From the outset they wanted the awards to break down barriers, and so the first consideration was how to make them as open as possible. Helen said: “This is a massive passion project for us but we have big ambitions for it to grow year-on-year. But, first things first, in 2020, we’re open for submissions from UK authors or authors who live in the UK, who published a book that could be described as diverse and/or inclusive in 2019. As with Hashtag BLAK, we don’t want to put any more barriers in the way for people to get involved, so we’re open to all authors, regardless of how they’ve been published and it’s free to enter.” It means self-published authors can enter alongside those published through more traditional routes. The awards will platform authors and books that have perhaps been overlooked because they have not had marketing budgets behind them. But, there is also the hope that publishing houses will look again at some of their titles.
Helen said: “We’re asking the publishers to look at their lists from 2019 and consider which books they could really say are diverse/inclusive, and submit them. We’re also looking for unknown/unheard of authors and books, to help them get a bigger platform, and we’re keen to see books across three categories: children’s, young adult and adult – all fiction.”
Abiola points to the US and the work that has been going on there in recent years, saying: “I feel like the US have
Spring-Summer 2020
really stepped up their books with diverse voices and the UK needs to come through. Again this is challenging publishers to look at their list and see how many books they actually published that are from under-represented voices.” She adds that the awards are an opportunity for British-based authors to reflect their realities and their perspective. She says: “I really want to see books that are reflective of society today. I want to read about characters from different backgrounds, cultures etc. And what’s great is that in some of the books that have been entered there are things I’ve never heard of, so I’m being educated.”
For self-published authors the awards offer an opportunity that is not normally available to them, and Abiola says: “Self-published authors get excluded from most of the book awards which I personally think it’s unfair. I’ve read many amazing self-published books and many of them are diverse books, so we need them.”
Helen agrees that opening the awards to a wider base will reap rewards – not just in terms of the quality of entries, but also in terms of the awards mission to be representative of diverse voices. She said: “We think it would be unwise to exclude self-published authors, as so many prizes do, because we believe that a
lot of under-represented authors struggle to get a traditional publishing deal from one of the major publishers, so they end up self-publishing. If we excluded them, we’d be biased towards only one way of publishing, and we fully believe that there are many ways to get a book published and there’s not one-size-fits-all.” There will be practical support to the overall winner, but all shortlisted titles can expect the awards to raise their profile. Helen says: “From a PR perspective, it can be a massive win for an author to be awarded a prize like this – particularly as the winners will receive a bespoke PR campaign from my company Literally PR. Hopefully this will lead to readers hearing more about their book and booksellers to stock their book. Who knows what doors will open even for those shortlisted let alone who win? The sky’s the limit.” But there is a wider benefit that could come from the awards, which both Helen and Abiola are keen to highlight. Abiola said: “I would like to think it will open readers minds. People that I know will know of maybe three authors from a under- represented background and they think that’s enough, but there are so many.” The recognition that comes from an award is valuable in many ways and The Diverse Book Award is an opportunity to promote authors and their books to a wider audience. The push for more diversity, representation and inclusion in publishing at all levels is helping to deliver change and these new awards are part of that journey. Pen&inc. sponsors the awards and will be running a feature on the winner and shortlisted authors. PEN&INC.
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www.thediversebookawards.co.uk PEN&INC. 17
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