Five books good, three books bad

Or not. It’s the NZ Post Book awards shortlist great debate again. To recap: two categories, general non-fiction and illustrated non-fiction, have five titles on their shortlists. Fiction and poetry have only three on theirs.

In today’s Sunday Star-Times books editor Mark Broatch writes that media coverage of the shortlists has seen:

General quiet clapping, which is quite appropriate, though understandable grumbles about having only three fiction finalists . . .

Understandable? Why?

At O Audacious Book, novelist Mary McCallum writes that:

there’s a groundswell of dissatisfaction about the list of only three books for both the fiction and poetry awards. Five, why can’t there be five? That way more books would get their time in the sun . . .

Mary’s evidence of a groundswell of dissatisfaction is a link former publisher Graham Beattie’s blog, where he writes:

I do however feel especially sorry for this panel having had their fiction and poetry short-lists confined to three titles [ . . . ] Let me say again – two non-fiction categories with five short-listed titles in each category, fiction and poetry short-lists confined to three titles each. Where is the fairness or logic in that?

I think that all three are completely wrong about this, for three reasons: proportionality, sales and ageism.

1. Proportionality

I don’t know about this year’s entries but they won’t be too different from last year’s, when I was a judge. In 2010 there was a total of 178 entries: 25 poetry, 26 fiction, 46 illustrative non-fiction and 71 general non-fiction.

For each category, here is the (rounded) percentage of eligible titles that were shortlisted:

Poetry: 12%

Fiction: 12%

General non-fiction: 11%

Illustrated non-fiction: 7%

So you can see that fiction is not disadvantaged at all by the new system. If anything, illustrated non-fiction is the loser here. If anyone wants to argue that fiction should be over-represented with 19% of its entries shortlisted, they should make the case. 

2. Sales

The numbers of entries in each category for the 2010 awards reflect what is published in New Zealand and what is stocked in bookshops. Because, like it or not, this is what people read. Publishers publish what readers read. Last year there were 117 non-fiction titles entered and 26 fiction: we buy and read massively more non-fiction than we do fiction. (I can’t explain the high number of poetry books published, other than insane optimism on the part of publishers and, let’s face it, subsidies. I am the only person I know who doesn’t write poetry but buys it.)

Booksellers know about this – they see it every day. I have talked to several, both chain and independent, over the last few years and all agree that  the shortlist has no effect on sales. Zero, zip, nada. Winning the award can make a huge difference but being shortlisted doesn’t – and more titles there are on the shortlist, the less being shortlisted means. Our local independent bookseller says that this year’s shortlist has made no difference in any category. He’s really good with his customers, knows most of them, and says that not one has come in to ask about any shortlisted book. Of the fiction shortlist, he bought two copies of one last year and still has both.

3. Ageism

No author or publisher would admit this, but the shortlist is old. These books are all from 2010, so some would have been published in February or March, so well over a year ago. Each one has had what Mary McCallum calls its “time in the sun” and if we didn’t buy it then, we are not likely to now. If it wins, maybe. But we are halfway through 2011 so we have all been bombarded with information about this year’s new books and no doubt bought some. Last year’s books are, somehow, so last year.

I really can’t see that a longer shortlist would change any of this.

UPDATE

There’s a thoughtful response to the above at Vicbooks, the excellent blog of the Victoria University Bookshop.