Man Booker Prize for Fiction leads the way with digital initiative

http://www.themanbookerprize.com/

• First literary prize to launch app
• Free to download
• Full chronological history of the prize over four decades
• Exclusive partnership with T-Mobile and GoSpoken

The Man Booker Prize, the leading literary award in the English speaking world, today, 26 August 2010, unveils exciting new digital plans for the 2010 prize.

The Man Booker Prize app will be free to download and will be the UK’s first app for a literary prize. The free app will offer access to the Man Booker Prize archive and will be available to download from the App Store to an Apple iPhone or iPod touch or at http://www.themanbookerprize.com/ from 26 August.

The app, which was created by award winning digital agency Vexed Digital, will offer a full chronological history of the prize including information about the judges and the longlist, shortlist and winning authors and books. App users will be able to access exclusive author interviews, video content and audio and text extracts from selected Man Booker Prize titles.

At every stage of the Prize the Man Booker Prize app will give users the most up to date information on the shortlist and winner announcements
A unique GPS service will also allow users to search for their local book shop or to buy directly from online retailers’ websites.

In addition, the Man Booker Prize announces an exclusive partnership with T-Mobile via the digital book retailer GoSpoken. The prize has worked with GoSpoken since 2008 to provide audio and text extracts of the longlisted books direct to mobile phones.

The new partnership with T-Mobile includes content on the mobile phone provider’s home page, “T-Zones” which can be accessed by the millions of T-Mobile users with internet connection. There will be exclusive competitions and prizes for users who buy a copy of a longlisted or shortlisted title or the winning book.

The Man Booker Prize website continues to grow and has become the central hub for comment on all contemporary literature. Traffic to the website now comes from over 150 countries and the site receives over 40,000 visitors at each stage of the prize.

The announcement of the 2010 longlist of 13 titles on 27 July saw the biggest spike in Twitter traffic with a total reader reach of over 90,000, including over 48,000 unique users.

Ion Trewin, Literary Director of the Man Booker Prizes, commented, “The Man Booker has always been innovative in its marketing. The Man Booker Prize App is an exciting way of getting to an additional band of potential readers of this year’s longlist and shortlist.”

This year’s Man Booker Prize shortlist will be announced on Tuesday 7 September at a press conference at Man Group’s London headquarters. The winner of the Man Booker Prize for Fiction 2010 will be revealed on Tuesday 12 October at a dinner at London’s Guildhall and will be broadcast on the BBC Ten O’Clock News.

The Man Booker Prize for Fiction rewards the winner with a cheque for £50,000 and worldwide recognition. Last year’s winning novel, Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel, has since sold over half a million copies. Each of the six shortlisted authors, including the winner, receives £2,500 and a designer bound edition of their shortlisted book.

Footnote:
The Bookman reckons he was the first person in NZ to downlaod this very impressive app to hi i-Pad. Done at 6.00am today.