As a reader are book awards important to you? Do you listen for the Edgar/Rita/Pulitzer lists and go and read them? do you even know what they are?
I don't usually go for award winning books just because they won an award. I go on recommendations from friends or others. Or I read my favorite authors.
As it turns out my current book-recommended by a friend-is an Edgar finalist for best first book. So, it will be interesting to see if I like it and if it wins.
I'm also curious to know if book industry awards are only meaningful to book industry people. Opinions?
It's a mixed bag. I have no interest in awards - either winning or books that have won. If a review site gives me five stars, that means so much more.
ReplyDeleteI know an NC author who won an ippy for his self-pubbed book. When Barnes & Noble wanted to stock their stores with his book, he took out several mortgages to fund the printing. In the end, almost every single book was returned and he went into deep debt. While there's a lot of factors here (including the author did little to promote his ippy winner) I think it says a lot about award winning books.
I agree whole-heartedly and am so sorry to hear about his experience with self publishing and award winning. Thanks for commenting.
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