Ion Trewin discusses the early stages of the 2012 Prize
“I find the excitement at the start of a new prize year hasn’t dimmed.”
The starter's tapes are up; the judges are at work. The 2012 Man Booker Prize is underway. In the seven years since becoming Literary Director I find the excitement at the start of a new prize year hasn't dimmed.
As I write we have only the broadest idea of the hundred plus entries. Past winners and shortlisted authors get automatic entry and if you follow the book review pages and literary blogs of the nation you will already have seen some familiar names.
This year's judges, chaired by Peter Stothard, editor of the TLS, are Dinah Birch, academic and literary critic; Amanda Foreman, historian, writer and broadcaster; Dan Stevens, actor and critic, and Bharat Tandon, academic, writer and reviewer. They began reading entries just before Christmas and have already had one meeting in which these were rigorously discussed.
Judges may read entries as paper proofs or as downloads onto their Kindles. Last year, the first when we supplied e-readers, two judges became hooked by the new technology. This year everyone is using it, although not necessarily exclusively. Is this a substantial straw in the wind? Are the days of traditional paper proofs numbered? In my view the answer is No. E-books are merely an alternative form of delivery (to adopt the jargon) and will remain side by side with traditional printed editions. Of course, there is already statistical evidence. In the United States sales of fiction in paperback have substantially declined, but with a commensurate rise in electronic sales. Are we beginning to see a similar pattern in the United Kingdom? One leading bookseller to whom I spoke recently says that he has witnessed a marked decline in paperback as opposed to electronic sales since Christmas. This suggests to me not a reduction of reading in fiction, but the fact that e-readers were the presents of choice last Christmas.
The importance of the prize to authors and publishers can be judged not just for the prestige of being what is in the judges' opinion ‘the best novel of the year' (which is how the rules put it), but in the increasing effect on sales. At present we don't have accurate e-book figures. For traditional book sales shops' electronic point of sales (EPOS) statistics are accepted as reliable with only a ten per cent margin of error. But e-books usually come from non EPOS sources. In due course that absence will be resolved.
What we do know for certain is that in England, Scotland and Wales last year's Man Booker winner, Julian Barnes's The Sense Of An Ending has sold over 140,000 copies in traditional hardback form and remained in the top ten best seller list week after week. As the London Evening Standard recently pointed out even without e-book sales this is substantially ahead of many mass market paperback sales (the Standard diarist, with some glee, compared the Barnes sales favourably to those of the latest novel by Katie Price).
By my calculations if you total the sales of The Sense Of An Ending across the globe it has probably sold more than half a million copies, making it the fastest-selling Man Booker winner. (The overall bestseller, with sales achieved in nearly 28 years, is Thomas Keneally's Schindler's Ark partly thanks to the success of the Spielberg film under the title Schindler's List.)
But back to this year. Entries for this year's Man Booker close on 1 April. Only publishers may make entries. In addition to novels by past winners and shortlisted authors each publisher is allowed two entries, with the judges given the opportunity of calling in a further eight to a dozen titles.
I am often asked if we miss any novel of substance. I don't think so. One has only to look at the shortlists and eventually winners of other prizes for confirmation. I look forward to another bumper year.
Ion Trewin,
Literary Director
