Rumination on a nomination for The National Book Award

The general public has no idea.

While thrilled and a bit overwhelmed to learn that my novel was nominated for The National Book Award, the clinical, ever-marketing side of m’brain has had a few realizations.

Many industry folks know that the publishing house nominates — not a group of journalists or the committee. That comes at the winnowing stage. However, the general public has no idea. I’ve had a reading since since learning about the nominations and several interviews: it sounds friggin’ awesome to hear, ” … bla bla bla nominated for The National Book Award … bla bla bla” or when the journalist or blogger writes that in my bio. Friggin’ awesome. Potential readers really groove to those words.

I’ve also realized how this is one of the few times that being published by a smaller house plays to an author’s advantage. When you are with a big house, you are up against the bold-faced names. Had I been lucky enough to receive an offer from a Big 5, there was no way in the world they would nominate my quiet little first time novel over a bold-faced name. Even going up against the other smaller books at that one house is more challenging at a big house: they publish so many books each season!

My house is a mid-sized press: about 150 books a year. Still a reasonable number to have been nominated over, yet the nomination made easier by sheer numbers.

Finally: I found out that about 1500 books a year are nominated for The NBA. Of those, about 500 are fiction.

Publish a novel with a smaller press — rah rah rah!!