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 3rd
January. That’s a plug. Thank you.
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