Small Publisher Book Prizes

Both the Foreword INDIES Book of the Year and the Independent Audiobook Awards were announced recently! Both of these awards are intended to support lesser known authors and to highlight books that do not have the dollars of a major book publishing company behind their marketing campaigns.

Foreword INDIES Book of the Year: This is one of my favorite indie book awards because of its format. One of the things I find difficult about some of these awards seeking to highlight diversity is that their categories become so specific that there are too many “winners” for me to focus on. While the Foreword INDIES still follow this format, with prizes in many very specific categories such as fantasy, reference, “body, mind & spirit”, graphic novels and more, it also chooses one overall winner from all the non-fiction winners and one winner from the fiction winners.

Editor’s Choice Prize Fiction

The Very Marrow of Our Bones by Christine Higdon

“The note said: Wally, I will not live in a tarpaper shack the rest of my life. Love, Bette.” That’s what ten-year-old Lulu Parsons discovered on the kitchen table the day her mother and their neighbor, Alice McFee, disappeared. And she hides it. Over the next forty years, Lulu tries to navigate this absence, tortured by pain, grief, and guilt, never knowing if her mother is still alive or murdered as the rest of the town suspects. Probing the kind of pain that “leaves you shattered and speechless,” Christine Higdon’s The Very Marrow of Our Bones toes the edge of grim darkness as it explores the shape of absence in the loves and lives of those left behind.

Editor’s Choice Prize Nonfiction

Call Them by Their True Names by Rebecca Solnit

“Rebecca Solnit wants you to act. She wants you to abandon naive cynicism and reject resting in anger. She wants you to engage the issues and go about the hard work of effecting change. And she believes that you can do it. Given the fiery elegance and brutal intelligence that binds the essays of Call Them By Their True Names together, she’s got the argumentative chops to convince you to begin that work now, in the midst of a period that she acknowledges is dark. Acting has never been more important.”

Independent Audiobook Awards: This is an award that is announced at the HEAR Now festival every year. Like many of the independent bookseller awards, it awards prizes in a ton of categories, from Best Male and Female Narrator to Suspense, Young Adult and Romance. I have pulled out the Non-Fiction and Literary Fiction Categories to highlight every year, but you can find more if you click HERE.

Literary Fiction

The Brothers Grimm Fairy Tales, Vol. 1 by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, narrated by Andrea Emmes

“Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm wrote over 200 fairytales called Kinder- und Hausmärchen (Children’s and Household Tales) published in 1812. Filled with moral lessons that are not wrapped up in the now-expected “Disney-esque” feel, these stories may shock or scare you, but they have been the inspiration for some of the most beloved modern fairytales we know and love. Sixty-two fairytales included in this collection”

Nonfiction

Just Five More Minutes – written and narrated by Michael Ross

“On a sunny spring morning, the lives of a Father and two small children
are going to tragically change forever.
From a murder to a trial and the rebuilding of lives.
This is a journey nobody wants to take, but sometimes we have no choice.
This is a real life story of children, love and murder.”

This wraps up the spring book awards – I will be back this weekend with a sweet subscription box and more!