The Big Book Festival will incorporate nine Hearst brands, including Good Housekeeping, Cosmopolitan, Prima, Harper’s Bazaar, Esquire, Elle, Red, Women’s Health and Men’s Health, with each brand being assigned a relevant category from ‘Crime’ and ‘Modern Classics’ to ‘Wellbeing’ and ‘Biography’.
The Big Book Awards will invite publishers to submit exciting and emerging work, published between 1st June 2017 and 31st May 2018, across these categories. If selected at the first stage, Hearst will engage its Reader Panel to review the titles. Following reader feedback, the top scoring books will be put forward for review by the Editors of the nine participating brands.
Using the combined scores from Hearst readers and Editors, a shortlist of titles in each category will be announced in June. Shortlisted books are able to publicise this status in all consumer-facing communications, along with reader testimonials and editorial quotes.
The final winners will be announced at a celebratory event in Summer 2018, says Hearst.
Alongside the awards, Hearst will launch Big Book Live, a series of live experiences in London focusing on bringing the pages and themes of the shortlisted books to life. Further details about each of these events will be announced later in the year.
Judith Secombe, Managing Director of Hearst Brand Services said: “Books are a natural fit for us at Hearst, with both our consumers and Editors having such an inherent passion for quality content. By creating the Big Book Festival, we’re aiming to help boost the amazing work of authors across the country, as well as offering publishers the chance to amplify their consumer outreach campaigns by having the Hearst stamp of approval. We want to offer publishers the chance to be involved in a fully authentic retail endorsement campaign, and with 1 in 3 adults who purchased a book in the last 12 months being a Hearst consumer – this is it!”
The full list of categories in the Big Book Festival are:
* Crime – Good Housekeeping
* Must Reads – Cosmopolitan
* Page Turners – Prima
* Modern Classics – Harper’s Bazaar
* Biography – Esquire
* Women Writers – ELLE
* Non Fiction and Children’s – Red
* Wellbeing – Women’s Health
* Health and Lifestyle – Men’s Health
