My 'Not the Booker Prize' Blog

I hadn’t even heard of the Guardian’s ‘Not The Booker Prize’ before the email arrived from my editor.  I was still getting over the disappointment of failing to make the Man Booker Prize last month, so any email with ‘Booker’ in the title line looked promising.  And so the whole thing started.

The idea is pretty simple. The Man Booker Prize (so the argument goes) is a sclerotic institution with its head up its own fundament and prizes like this should be put back into the hands of the people. Democracy should reign. (This overlooks the unfortunate point that democracy has plenty of say in book sales, and if it were to be equitably applied, then Shades of Grey would win every prize going. But moving swiftly on … ).  First someone has to go online to nominate your book. That’s easy enough (actually it was fiendishly complex – but the principle is easy). Then the great reading public are invited to vote. But here’s the twist; they have to accompany their vote with a 100 word review of the book. This will prove that the voting is honest, and weed out all but the most determined sock puppets. This process resulted in a couple of hundred titles, many much more likely to attract widespread public attention than Max Ponder could hope to do. And now a serious flaw in the democratic process became apparent. With only a few dozen votes separating the winners from the also-rans, the winner wasn’t really going to be selected by public vote at all. There would be some genuine votes cast, but the balance that would swing the day would be determined by the friends and family of the authors, their facebook contacts, and the employees of the publishing house. Oh dear.

My confession, dear reader, is that I willing and complicity engaged in this scam. I whipped up my friends, I tweeted, I posted on LinkedIn, and through the enormous generosity of a whole set of friends, I earned myself a third place. Which I’m happy with. But in the process I learned some things. First I learned not to do this again. If I enter another book prize I’ll be more than happy to leave it to judges to tell me how good or how bad my book is. But I also learned what a great set of friends I have. The 100 word reviews they posted were so full of warmth, I was genuinely touched. I didn’t know everyone who voted – of the fifty or so votes that got me on the shortlist, I think I know around half of the people. Finishing in third place makes me feel that I let them down. But I still feel very blessed that I know so many wonderful people, and that so many of them liked my book.

In the end I’m not really critical of the format of NTBP. It is what it is. If you enter, you have to recognise the way it works. I don’t think it is a prize that suits a debut novelist … because the more established writers have a loyal readership that they can mine for votes. But I’m not sorry that I entered. Sam Jordison wrote a very moving Guardian review (I happen to think that his review of Max Ponder was the best review of any of the seven shortlisted books). And the exposure was helpful. All exposure is.

As I write this I’m still not sure who won. It was either Ewan Morrison (Tales from the Mall) or Ben Myers (Pig Iron). Well done guys. And well done mobilising your vote. I will read the winning book. I hope you read mine. The Notable Brain of Maximilian Ponder will be out in Paperback on 3^rd January. That’s a plug. Thank you.