The biggest three prizes, including the Costas, require a £5,000 fee from publishers if a book is shortlisted. “I can only cover the fee, but some of the awards also charge a lot for the awards ceremony.” Though her authors have had success with prestigious smaller prizes, including LGBTQ awards, she said the three top book prizes were the only ones that really affected sales “It’s such a huge cost that most small publishers can’t do it,” said Adele Ward of the independent firm Ward Wood.
Some small publishers say the cost of entering the three top awards – the Man Booker, the Baileys prize for women’s fiction and the Costa books of the year – alongside pressure on juries to choose winners that have sponsor-pleasing commercial impact, rather than “difficult” books less appealing to general readers, mean they are wary of entering experimental work. “Every major literary prize is under the same pressures – the balance between picking books that break new ground, challenge readers and those books that will be popular,” he said. Literary prize culture had exacerbated the situation, added Geller, whose clients include Man Booker winner Howard Jacobson and William Boyd, who won the Costa novel of the year in 2006.
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