The literary prize decided by Guardian readers is once again up for grabs. Nominate now to help decide who will get the most coveted mug in British letters
Brewing up a contest ... Who be lifting this year's hotly-contested Not the Booker mug in October?
The Not the Booker prize is three! And hasn't it grown? In human terms, it's a toddler – walking, talking, refusing to eat vegetables and increasingly defiant. No, scrub that. It's too much of a frightening thought. The important thing to note is that the most unruly prize in the literary calendar is here again.
At this stage in the proceedings it's next to impossible to know how it will turn out – except that it's guaranteed to be interesting. Will we be talking about edgy debuts from tiny indy publishers? Will we be talking about SF? Will we be talking about books that will also feature on the official Booker longlist? Will we be talking about the books that everyone thinks should have featured on the official Booker shortlist, but somehow didn't? We can't say. It's out of our hands. Once again we're handing control over to you. Only you can decide which books we talk about and which books make the shortlist. Only you can decide which one wins. Or possibly which two, please Lord not three.
The format will be very nearly the same as last year and the year before that– which makes things easier for me as I can once again just cut and paste from 2009's opening blogpost:
"Over the next few weeks nominations will be gathered here, books will be shortlisted and discussed and – provided things go smoothly – a winner will be selected.
For the sake of convenience we're also going to use roughly the same entry criteria as the Booker panel. That's to say, you can nominate:
• Any full-length novel (or at least, a long novella) written by a citizen of the Commonwealth, the Republic of Ireland or Zimbabwe.
• No English translation of a book written originally in any other language.
• No self-published books where the author is the publisher or where a company has been specifically set up to publish that book.
• The books have to have a scheduled publication date between 1 October 2010 and 30 September 2011.
Unlike the Booker panel, however, we aren't going to limit the number of entries per publisher."
The full terms and conditions are available here.
At this stage in the proceedings it's next to impossible to know how it will turn out – except that it's guaranteed to be interesting. Will we be talking about edgy debuts from tiny indy publishers? Will we be talking about SF? Will we be talking about books that will also feature on the official Booker longlist? Will we be talking about the books that everyone thinks should have featured on the official Booker shortlist, but somehow didn't? We can't say. It's out of our hands. Once again we're handing control over to you. Only you can decide which books we talk about and which books make the shortlist. Only you can decide which one wins. Or possibly which two, please Lord not three.
The format will be very nearly the same as last year and the year before that– which makes things easier for me as I can once again just cut and paste from 2009's opening blogpost:
"Over the next few weeks nominations will be gathered here, books will be shortlisted and discussed and – provided things go smoothly – a winner will be selected.
For the sake of convenience we're also going to use roughly the same entry criteria as the Booker panel. That's to say, you can nominate:
• Any full-length novel (or at least, a long novella) written by a citizen of the Commonwealth, the Republic of Ireland or Zimbabwe.
• No English translation of a book written originally in any other language.
• No self-published books where the author is the publisher or where a company has been specifically set up to publish that book.
• The books have to have a scheduled publication date between 1 October 2010 and 30 September 2011.
Unlike the Booker panel, however, we aren't going to limit the number of entries per publisher."
The full terms and conditions are available here.
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