The FutureBook book of the year celebrates innovative books whether they are print books, audiobooks, e-books, enhanced e-books, apps, or web-site based. They can be in any format including (but not restricted to) audio, apps, ePub, iBA, Kindle, HTML or print.

Winning entries in this category will need to demonstrate:
Innovation: how they made the most of their content in a new, inventive way.
Design and usability: how they created a well-designed and intuitive user experience.
Discoverability: how their book or product could be discovered and what marketing was put behind it.
Connection with audience: how they made the effort to understand their audience, and evidence of this engagement in the product and the campaign behind it.

Success will be measured against:
·Execution of the idea
·Customer reviews and feedback
·Budget behind the product and associated campaigns
·Sales/download figures for the book or product

This category will reward marketing or publicity campaigns that have used digital and/or print in a creative, intuitive and integrated way. The campaign could be for a book, an author, a genre, a series, a bookshop, an event or anything else book-related. It is open to publishers, authors, booksellers, start-ups and anyone who has put together an innovative campaign in the book world which has digital, multi-media element.

Campaigns will be judged on:
Innovation and creativity: entries will demonstrate original and imaginative thinking in their choice and use of media.
Audience engagement: entries will have thought clearly about who their target market is and used digital in a meaningful way to connect with this audience.
Coherent campaign strategy: entries will have successfully integrated online and offline activities to build a coherent marketing strategy with clear goals.
Campaign execution: entries will have executed their strategy successfully and taken a long-term approach to retaining the audience generated for this project.
Return on investment: Winning entrants will demonstrate the effectiveness of the campaign in achieving its financial goals.

This award seeks to find the most exciting new businesses or in-house initiatives that have the potential to make a unique impact on the book publishing industry in the years ahead.

The award is open to startups at seed funding stage (pre-series round investment) and which have been running for no more than two years since beta or public launch. Candidates don’t have to have created proprietary tech, but they do have to demonstrate that they’re using digital tools and/or an understanding of their audience’s digitally-influenced behaviours in powerful, relevant and original ways. They may be from around the world, but founders must be available to attend the live final pitch-off on the FutureBook Conference on 25th November, where a panel of judges will award the BookTech Company of the Year from a shortlist of five finalists.

Judges will be awarding points in four key areas:
creativity of idea
clarity of market opportunity
audience-product fit
viability of the business model

This award honours a books podcast that has done most to champion books, authors and/or writing during the past year. It is open to any UK or overseas based podcast, which is primarily focused on discussing and/or promoting books and/or writers. The award is open to individuals running and/or hosting their own podcasts, or companies operating their own books podcast.

While the podcast does not need to be solely focused on books, discussion of the written word must be prominent. Podcasts may have existed for some time, but to win the FutureBook award in 2019, evidence must be produced of excellence during the past year. Podcasts must be regular (monthly, weekly), and must show evidence of listener growth.

Winning entries in this category will need to demonstrate:

Enthusiasm and dedication to creating a unique podcast experience
Effective use of the podcast to promote books/reading and/or writing
Delivery of engaging and entertaining content which engages with the target audience
A commitment to the podcast format
An innovate marketing strategy to promote the podcast, and encourage engagement with it
Listener growth and/or interaction with the audience.

Please provide a link to your podcast on application, or include sample sound files of particular examples. Please note, if your file is too big to upload, you can send it over via link to events@thebookseller.com