Got a Backlist Title You’d Like to See Get a Little Love? 2023 IPNE Book Awards

10th Annual IPNE Book Awards
Independent Publishers of New England

Thinking of submitting a novel to the 2023 IPNE Book Awards? Follow — and participate in — the rest of this discussion via A Deeper Dive into Your Novel or Short Story Collection. . . . p.s. Literary fiction is a genre too.

We get it. Maybe you missed out on submitting a particular book when it was newly published. Maybe doing so wasn’t even on your radar then. The point is, readers don’t flock exclusively to recently published books. They care about the quality of the read, not the date of publication.

So, we’re introducing a new series to help surface those great stories of the past to readers in the now, a series that lets authors and publishers dip into their backlist, a series to focus on, well, let’s call them legacy (or perhaps heritage) works. We’re kicking off the series this year with fiction of the twenty-teens + a 2020 reprise.

The FAQs . . .

What qualifies this year? Any work of fiction published from 2010 through 2019, plus the bonus year of 2020.

Where might this series go in future? This is a new venture for us, but we’re thinking to rotate through the different categories of writing that weaves its spell through story — memoir, YA novels, children’s fiction — as well as poetry. Each year, a different category.

Have a favorite category to be addressed? Speak up!

Why not also a legacy category for informational nonfiction? Because informational nonfiction can tend to go out of date, and because subject matter can be rethought and reorganized (in a way that stories, post-publication, are not), these are works with many organic and even necessary paths to new or revised editions.

Such editions — where what’s between the covers has changed in some substantial way — of fictional works are far less common. A novel might be republished with a new foreword, something, for example, that sheds new light on the work in some way or repositions it within the current cultural moment. Or a foreign-language novel might become available in a new translation. Or a well-known work of fiction might be released in a new critical edition, with all new essays and commentary.

But storytellers don’t rewrite their already-published stories in the way that informational works can be (and often should be) revisited and revised. Stories, once crafted and published, do not have those same opportunities as informational nonfiction does to sport shiny new industry-standard publication dates. And that can put them at a
disadvantage, both in the industry as a whole and in awards programs.

So, help us kick off this new series, help us navigate its future. The book industry is so focused on the recent, the new, the forthcoming. Let’s back it up a bit and remind readers of the fine work that’s already out there, just waiting to be (re)discovered.

Good books are forever. Let’s help readers find their way to more of them.
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Check out submission details for the 2023 IPNE Book Awards. Fiction authors, to help us better match your book to judges, please complete the questionnaire A Deeper Dive into Your Novel or Short Story Collection before registering.

Related post: Genre Gets a Bad Rap, In Some Circles