Are there too many literary awards

Q. Are there too many literary awards and are they anything more than backslapping

A. It would be cynical to write off awards as mere self-congratulation for the publishing industry, but they do seem to be proliferating at a rate that suggests overindulgence. A cursory glance at the Bookseller - the trade organ of the publishing and bookselling trades in the UK – in any given week will bring up at least four references to different British and Commonwealth awards. Literary prizes have become the symbol of the globalised literary marketplace, accompanied by lavish award ceremonies, audio-visual presentations and black-tie dinners in swanky hotel ballrooms. The Booker and Whitbread awards ceremonies even get televised these days. So, in terms of influence they should not be dismissed.

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Q. What prizes are there

A. Apart from the obvious, such as the Whitbread Prize in the UK and the Pulitzer Prize in the USA, there are hundreds of awards for English-language books (as well as translations into English). http://www.literature-awards.com/ is an A-Z listing of more than 100 major English-language awards with an American bias, though it includes the bigger UK and other awards. It lists categories of awards as: Fiction, Non-fiction, Poetry, Children's and Teens, Reference, Science Fiction, Fantasy, Mystery, Crime, Horror, Culinary, American West, Business and Romance, so pretty much everything is covered.

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From the Aventis Science Book Award to the Shamus prize awarded by the Private Eye Writers of America and the UK’s own Literary Review-masterminded Bad Sex in Fiction Awards - past winners A.A. Gill, Sebastian Faulks and Lord Bragg of Wigton, and given ‘for the worst, most redundant or embarrassing description of physical joining in a novel’ – every discipline has its prize. And then there are awards for books in every other language under the sun . . .

Q. What's the best-known prize in Britain

A. The best known British literary prize, the Booker, was set up in 1968 by Booker McConnell Ltd to reward merit, raise the stature of the author in the eyes of the public and increase the sale of books. Eligible novels must be written in English by a citizen of Britain, the Commonwealth or the Republic of Ireland. The winner is announced in a televised ceremony at the end of October each year. Winners over the years have included Michael Ondaatje (The English Patient), Pat Barker (The Ghost Road) and Ian McEwan (Amsterdam). Salman Rushdie was awarded the Booker of Bookers - the best Booker winner in its first 25 years -�for Midnight’s Children.

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Q. Most money/least money

A. Certainly, the size of the reward rarely correlates to the prestige it generates. The Dublin-based Impac Award is the world's most lucrative for a single work of fiction, but it never generates anything like the space devoted to the Booker. France's coveted Prix Goncourt bestows a mere 50 francs (�5) on its annual winner, barely enough for a celebratory coffee and croissant, but its worth is incalculable in terms of sales and prestige.

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Q. Do literary prizes compete with one another

A. People in Britain often speak of the Booker as a benchmark, but there are many other important prizes such as the Commonwealth, the Guardian and the Orange. Each literary prize functions within its own parameters. The Orange Prize is only for women, for example, but in any given year there is likely to be an overlap of books submitted by publishers for various prizes.

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Q. What use are they

A. Literary prizes can make an aspiring author or rekindle or endorse the career of an established writer. It can also do the same for a publishing house, as even just being shortlisted for one of the major awards leads to huge sales and plenty of media exposure. It is often the least well-known nominees for an award who will reap the most substantial benefits. Fewer than 1,000 copies of Keri Hulme's The Bone People had been printed for distribution in the UK before it won the Booker in 1985; sales soared to a respectable 34,000 in the months following and it remains in print today.

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Martyn Goff, administrator of the Booker has said: ‘The monetary side, apart from the prize money itself, counts for a lot. Take Arundhati Roy, an unknown author writing her first book: �21,000 sounds like a lot of money, but then you see that she went on to sell hundreds of thousands in hardback. People don't realise that the shortlisted books, almost without exception, immediately go on to sell all sorts of paperback and foreign rights. And the effect lasts a good many years.’

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Q. And lastly

A. This proliferation of awards can be viewed in a positive and a negative light. On the one hand, literary awards are a barometer for the quality of literature, which is good for readers; awards are also an incentive for raising standards, which is good for writers. But on the other, as noted by the literary critic and theoretician Northrop Frye, this type of recognition may hamper development by making the writer prematurely self-conscious. As he stated as early as 1965: ‘There are so many medals offered for literary achievement that a modern Canadian Dryden might well be moved to write a satire on medals, except that if he did he would promptly be awarded the medal for satire and humour.’

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By Simon Smith