New award categories for 2015 ABIAs

23 February 2015 Books+Publishing

Three new awards will be presented for the first time at this year’s Australian Book Industry Awards (ABIAs).

Two of the new awards, the Small Publisher Adult Book of the Year and the Small Publisher Children’s Book of the Year, have been introduced to ‘encourage small publishers to participate in the ABIAs’.

The adult book award will be presented to ‘an outstanding fiction or nonfiction book, with broad appeal, written by an Australian author’ and the children’s book award will go to ‘an outstanding children’s or young adult book, written by an Australian author’. Publishers with a turnover of less than $10m are eligible to enter the two categories.

The third new category is the Matt Richell Newcomer of the Year Award, presented to an Australian author of a first work of any genre published between January and December 2014. The award is named in honour of former Hachette Australia CEO Matt Richell, who died in a surfing accident in July last year.

Nominations for the 2015 ABIAs opened on 23 February. The ABIAs will be presented at Doltone House, Jones Bay Wharf in Sydney on 21 May 2015 during the Sydney Writers’ Festival. Visit the ABIA website for more information.

To see the list of winners of last year’s ABIAs, click here.

Category: Local news