About the NZ Post Book Awards

20 Oct 2009

The New Zealand Post Book Awards celebrate excellence, identifying the very best books written by New Zealanders.

THE AWARDS

Books are judged in four main categories: Poetry, Fiction, Illustrated Non-fiction and General Non-fiction. A finalist list of 16 will be comprised of: 3 Poetry finalists, 3 Fiction finalists and 5 finalists in both the Illustrated Non‐fiction and General Non‐fiction categories. One Book of the Year will be
chosen from these 16 finalists.

Books submitted in the four main categories, written by first‐time authors, are also eligible to win the New Zealand Society of Authors Best First Book Awards for Poetry, Fiction and Non‐fiction.

Books written entirely in Te Reo, are judged for the Māori Language Award.

The extremely popular Readers’ Choice Award is the public’s opportunity to vote for their favourite book of the 16 finalist titles, as selected by the judges, either online or by paper ballot. Voting opens every year with the public announcement of the finalist list.

PRIZES

A significant prize pool will see the overall winner of the Book of the Year Award receiving $15,000. Winners of the four Category Awards will each receive $10,000, the Māori Language Award $10,000, Readers’ Choice Award $5,000, and each of the winners of the three NZSA Best First Book Awards,
$2,500.

SPONSORSHIP

The principal sponsors of the New Zealand Post Book Awards are the New Zealand Post Group and Creative New Zealand. The awards are managed by Booksellers New Zealand and supported by the New Zealand Society of Authors and Book Tokens (NZ) Ltd.

BACKGROUND

Before 1996, there were two major New Zealand literary prizes, the New Zealand Book Awards (1973‐1995) and the Goodman Fielder Wattie Book Awards (1968‐1993).

Montana took over the sponsorship of the Wattie Awards in 1994, and the Awards became the Montana Book Awards (1994‐1995). In 1996, the two Awards merged to form the Montana New Zealand Book Awards (1996‐2009). In 2010, sponsorship of the Awards was assumed by New Zealand Post.

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