British Book Awards

• The British Book Awards, also known as the „Oscar of the book trade“, are distributed annually to authors, books, publishing houses and others in several categories.
• The prize is promoted by “Publishing News”, the trade journal of the UK publishing industry, which is also called the “Nibbies”.
• When the awards were first given in 1990 in London, the event showed itself as a sell-out. Today, the British Book Awards became a famous TV-event, with 2.4 million viewers on average attracted by the show every year.
• Although several additional prize categories were announced in the beginning of the 1990s, the number of awards has been reduced, in order to focus more on the Book of the Year category.
• Subsidiary categories were introduced as The British Book Trade Awards, which became the British Book Industry awards this year.
• Zadie Smith won the “Newcomer of the Year” award in 2001.

• The headline categories are:

Best Read of the Year Book of the Year Bestseller of the Year Author of the Year Writer of the Year Newcomer of the Year

Biography of the Year Crime Thriller of the Year History Book of the Year Literary Fiction Travel Writer of the Year Fantasy and Science Fiction Author of the Year

Sports Book of the Year TV & Film Book of the Year Audiobook of the Year Fastest Selling Biography of all Time Lifetime Achievement Award

Children's Book of the Year Children’s Author of the Year Illustrated Children’s Book of the Year Illustrated Book of the Year