The Quill Awards Announce Nominees

Posted on August 5, 2005

Reed Business Information (RBI) and the NBC Universal Television Stations have named the five nominees in each of 19 categories for the first Quill Awards, a new national book award that allows consumers in the voting process. In January 2005, RBI and NBC Universal Television Stations announced that they had joined forces to support the Quills launch and awards. The first Quill Awards will be announced on October 11 at a ceremony hosted by NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams, with special appearances by Jon Stewart, Robert Klein, and others. Produced by Al Roker Productions, Inc., the one-hour Quill Awards television special, hosted by Al Roker and WNBC's Jane Hanson, will be aired on NBC on Saturday, October 22, 2005.

The nominations for The Quill Award categories were made by a national panel of approximately 6,000 booksellers and librarians selected from RBI's Publishers Weekly subscriber base. Winners will be determined by consumer voting online at quillsvote.com, which will begin on August 15 and continues through September 15, 2005. Booksellers will carry a Quills brochure for customers to take home, listing the nominees and instructions for voting online at www.quillsvote.com. Borders Books & Music will also allow customers to vote at dedicated kiosks in their stores.

To be eligible for the long list of nominees, a book must have been published in its original format in North America between August 1, 2004, and July 31, 2005, and marketed in the United States. It must also meet one of the following criteria: a starred review in Publishers Weekly, a Barnes & Noble's Discover Great New Writers Program selection, one of the American Bookseller Association's Book Sense Picks, a Borders Books & Music Original Voices title, or an appearance on the bestsellers lists of Publishers Weekly, Book Sense, Barnes & Noble, or Borders. The Quill Awards event will benefit the not-for-profit Quills Literacy Foundation.