Judging is well underway for this year’s BFNA (Best First Novel Award), administered by the Authors Club. As ever, the process prompts all sorts of conclusions about the year in publishing, at least as far as debuts are concerned. The annual surprise is the number of publishers (even big-name, prestigious outfits) who don’t have anything to submit. This means they have published zero British debut novelists over the course of the year (as opposed to buying in books from America, and the DELUGE of short-story collections and novels from over the pond is no doubt something I will tackle in a future post).
The aim of the award is to support the work of UK-based writers, publishers and agents. Our rule of thumb is that authors should either be British or based in the UK (we also accept Irish novelists, with some provisos), and novels must be published first in the UK before anywhere else. Here’s the first headache – in a global publishing world, it’s getting more difficult to establish where a book was first published and whether it matters. UK/US publication dates are now often simultaneous, which is no problem, but then publishing partners may jump the gun and pre-empt the UK publication… cue anguished email exchanges to establish eligibility.
This year’s other surprise is the sheer number of historical novels submitted; reading is not complete but so far they seem to outnumber novels set in the present day by 3:1. Some of them are superb, and if that ratio holds true overall, this will presumably have to be reflected in the shortlist. No doubt there are many factors to explain this trend, an essential conservatism and risk-averseness in the industry among them, but can we credit Hilary Mantel with launching this?
Now is the panel’s chance to read the debuts that have electrified the publishing world this year, selling in huge numbers and garnering (other) prizes. Our response, after all the hype, is very often ‘meh…’ It’s very easy to be overwhelmed by competence when judging a prize like this, when what we are looking for is brilliance and originality. Authors who implausibly import modern viewpoints to historical fiction are a particular bugbear of mine. I’m also sick to death of characters who creep about listening at doors to glean vital plot information; what a tired device! But then again, that’s why I’m a critic, and not a wildly successful publisher.