Input for Booker Site Redesign

[James]

Hello all.

It's been a while since I've posted, but I always come back around July because I love following along with all of you and reading your thoughts on the Booker.

Back when I was in college, I was involved with a project organized by one of my professors who every year would recruit students to read the long list and write essays about the novels. As the project continued he began communication with the Booker director about his students and the project, attended the winner's ceremony, and yes, gave them grief when he felt they got it wrong.

Recently, he attended a zoom meeting with Gaby Wood and the team in charge of redesigning the website for the prize. They have asked him to gather input on what readers would like to see on the new site. And being a member of this group, even back to its earlier iterations on Mookse's forum and the old Booker site itself, I suggested that I would come to all of your for input as well.

Here is what he put to me and the other current and former students of his project:

-what will pull you to the website?
-what and how can you go beyond just reading a Booker novel and writing a blurb about that book? (essentially, how can what we already do here be pushed further)
-what would encourage you to go through the back lists?
-which type of events would you be willing to participate in?
-which approaches will make you access the site, be part of the site, yet not make the site too "elite" or not "approachable"?
-what/where is the balance between too elite and too personal? (such as wanting access to the authors, judges, etc.)
-aside from being able to attend a ceremony, or the London-based events each season, what would bring you to all things Booker? Say you are unable to attend certain events, what then?

He then says "think connections--to a community that loves reading, that gets you to pursue things beyond the current shortlist. Think community, beyond facebook, twitter, etc.

Then, after suggesting I post about this here, he said to me they do not want this just a link on their website to say which books someone likes and why...but rather something more indicative of the experience of reading, the history of the prize, etc. "what will incite readers familiar with Booker books to investigate/explore the long list of titles, writers" He then went on to say that after reading Lively's Moon Tiger, her started looking into her backlist, learning about her, then following her career from that point on, "this way, we get an idea of how we connect with a larger community about who we are--as individuals, but also as a community. Why that community?"

So, now I ask all of you, what would you like to see in a redesign of the Booker site? How can it be more than just GoodreadsLite? How can it caputre the sense of community and connectedness with feel with an author and a community of other readers? I will take and pass on any suggestions.

Thanks,
James

[WndyJW]

Hello James. Booker season is an exciting time of year!
Speaking only for myself, I go to the Booker Prize website every year once the Longlist is announced, and I watch the Booker Prize podcast for new shows. Maybe some authors from past years would be willing to be on the podcast.

I just went to the site and saw the Booker Vintage, that’s an exciting idea, but I’d like to see more about the books in addition to the behind the scenes pieces, for instance it’s almost impossible to find old longlists anymore. Wikipedia has a list of shortlisted books, but no Longlist, even the Booker site doesn’t have the longlists, maybe the site could have a link to those.
For some reason readers seem to like lists, I would love to see a spreadsheet of longlist-shortlist-winners for every year. One that books nerds could use to check off books that they have read, that would likely get some readers to look for back lists to complete their own list of Booker books read.

We always hear why judges selected the winner, but it would be interesting to hear from past judges about books they really wanted to win, but had to let go in order to reach a consensus.

Most of us won’t be able to attend any functions in London, but Zoom functions with previous winning authors talking about their books, talking to each other, and judges discussing their feeling about winners and the books they felt strongly about would he great.

I’d like to hear or read about the mission statement of the Booker now. Has it changed over the years? Is the organization still focused on the finest fiction or are they more interested now in reaching a wider audience and so choose books that are “hardcore literary fiction” as well as books that are more accessible to casual readers and would be good bookclub material?

I don’t know if these are the types of ideas you are looking for, but there’s my two cents.

[Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer]

Wendy - the Booker prize did not have an official longlist until 2001 - so the website has all the longlists

[Hugh, Active moderator]

It took a few years from publishing the longlists (2001 as GY says) to standardising them to 13 books - the early ones were longer, so very few people will have read them completely. I would be interested in what is known about any unofficial longlists from before 2001 but I suspect we will never see those (or the lists of submitted books!)

[Paul]

A list of the books submitted, actually published in advance of the longlist itself, would be one good way to get a pre-announcement buzz going. Instead, we end up having to make our own guesses as to submitted books on here.

[Edit: although I understand why they don't do this, due to the entry restrictions - typically authors themselves, as Derek explained last year, aren't told if their book was submitted]

[Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer]

I suspect if they did that a lot of authors would leave their publishers!

From the very few authors I know the topic of whether their book has even been submitted is a very fraught one. That can be for small publishers worried at costs of submissions or for large publishers who (even with the Booker's imprint/past shortlistees rules) have very limited quotas ..... I am pretty sure for example that a good chunk of the books we have tipped have not been entered

[Paul]

It would make me visit the website though and engage - which was the question!

I actually wonder if it is the right question though. Websites seem a bit last decade (or even decade before that) - isn't social media where engagement is likely, and there it would help if the Booker's own social media, the judges etc engaged with readers. As you've pointed out Gumble, the Women's Prize is much better at this.

[Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer]

James I wanted to say that its brilliant that you have come here to post this

I will give it some thought but my first reaction is that the issue is less with their website and more with their social media engagement - the Women's Prize is so much better at Twitter etc

The very fact that they are asking about the Website I think feels a little old-fashioned to be honest.


Just one example - its obvious that the Women's Prize actively encourages its judges to tweet when they have a judges meeting, in the days ahead of the longlist and shortlist and winner's announcement etc. They will even comment -in a kind of teasing way - on other people's guesses as to the lists.

One has the impression that by contrast the Booker at best does not encourage this and at worst actively discourages it. Or maybe picks judges with no social media interest.

Sameer Rahim was a noteable exception last year and also wrote a good article on the judging process after the winner announcement

But this year by contrast I don't think any judge has made any reference anywhere to the process

Another example the Booker hardly goes out of its way to make it easy to follow the prize - the longlist date was only announced a week or two back and until then the website still had all the 2020 details. Even now I don't think we know what time of the day the longlist is being announced - and its quite common in the days before the longlist/shortlist to see people tweeting the Booker to ask for the timing and getting no reply

Again by contrast with the Women's Prize they (and the judges) will tweet regular countdowns - the Women's Prize will retweet or link to prediction videos and reviews of the longlist.

[Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer]

Wendy this while not a spreadsheet is the list of all books ever short or longlisted althouhg even there it is now 1 year out of date - which to me speaks to the lack of active engagement that the Booker website has

https://thebookerprizes.com/sites/man...

[Paul]

Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer wrote: "The very fact that they are asking about the Website I think feels a little old-fashioned to be honest.te - which to me speaks to the lack of active engagement that the ..."

I cued you up nicely for that with my previous post!

Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer wrote: "Just one example - its obvious that the Women's Prize actively encourages its judges to tweet when they have a judges meeting, in the days ahead of the longlist and shortlist and winner's announcement etc. They will even comment -in a kind of teasing way - on other people's guesses as to the lists.."

One judge this year of course revealed several books on the longlist (with some squinting/guessing) which I think is great, although I suspect she didn't intend to be quite so revealing.

The Best Translated Book Award is brilliant at that - asking people to guess the longlist and telling them how many they have got right.

[Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer]

I think event wise two ideas:

More organised read alongs of either past winners or past shortlists (or perhaps with a panel of judges picking a combined shortlist of books from across a few years) - organised as in promoted on the website with forums where people can debate the books - but with the Booker also linking ot BookTubers/Forums that were having their own debate. And then - and most importantly - a vote/poll to pick a winner would work well: that builds on the Golden Man Booker which I think did work in getting the reading public interested as well as the recent Women's Prize "Winner of Winners" which had huge involvement

This would be more controversial - but actively encourage and then involve shadow juries. I really think that the International Booker Prize shadow jury puts a lot of effort in and if the Booker was braver it would at least express interest in their views and debates.

[Hugh, Active moderator]

The longlist announcement is at 0001 (no consideration for moderators who want to sleep!) - can't remember whether I saw that on Twitter, Facebook or the Booker website.

[Ang]

I was most engaged with the Booker website when they hosted their own discussion forum. I would join in that again if they started it up.

I rarely use twitter and don't want to so I hope it doesn't go further in that direction at the expense of other means of engagement.

[Ang]

I would like the lists to be searchable, e.g. by author, publisher, or nationality. Being able to order the full list in various ways would be welcome too.

[WndyJW]

I don’t know how you found those lists, Gumble. I could have sworn a few years ago the only source for the longlists was Hugh. I even asked him if I could post his list in another group that was looking for the lists at that time. Thank you, though.

It shouldn’t be difficult for the Booker people to have an inviting, engaging web site for the wise people who are not interested in social media, while also being a presence on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook, and I’m guessing TicTok and YouTube.

[Ang]

Hugh wrote: "The longlist announcement is at 0001 (no consideration for moderators who want to sleep!) - can't remember whether I saw that on Twitter, Facebook or the Booker website."

Choosing that time confuses things more than necessary too. When they say 27th, I would tend to write it in my diary on the 27th, but if it's just after midnight that would be the 26th in a diary.

[Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer]

100 percent agree Ang.

[Debra]

I love the interactive search feature of the NPR Book Concierge

[WndyJW]

Yes! Debra, that is perfect. A printable list is not much use, this would keep people clicking links.

[Ang]

Yes, I can see how that could be nicely adapted to the full Booker list.

[Robert]

To repeat, I would love to see a list of books that didn't make the older lists. I'm sure some judges from the 90's will remember.

[WndyJW]

What do you mean, Robert? Books that were read for the Booker, but didn’t make the Longlist?

[James]

Thanks for this everything. I’ve forwarded all you suggestions and now look forward to waiting in the dark with all of you to see what the next redesign looks like. I hope they’re serious about taking reader input because there were a lot of good suggestions here.

Thanks again