14th May 2018
Since The Bath Novel Award 2018 closed to entries on April 30th, our first stage readers have been reading all the extracts and synopses and matching them with our longlisting team of readers, editors and writers including former winners and shortlistees.
The longlisting team are now in the process of reading in batches of entries and voting YES or NO to the question: based on this extract and synopsis, would you choose to read on?
The novels with the highest number of YES votes will go forward to the longlist. Bath Novel Award longlists are typically 30-35 titles strong and this year’s will be announced on the 24th of May.
In addition to the regular YES votes, each member of the longlisting team also has the option to award one ‘golden vote’. These may be given to a standout entry the reader can’t stop thinking about and would especially love to read in full. Entries which attract one or more golden vote are automatically longlisted in addition to the entries with the most regular YES votes.
Between 14th and 23rd May we’ll be sharing ‘snippets’ from the comments which accompanied YES votes on our twitter account @bathnovelaward. These ‘snippets’ are searchable under the tag #BNA2018 and here’s an example from last year’s award:
#BNA2017 – Thriller: “Straight into the story,strong writing & synopsis gives hope for something wild and breathtaking. YES”
— Bath Novel Award (@BathNovelAward) May 14, 2017
Due to the volume of votes which come in, only a representative selection of YES vote comments are tweeted. Golden votes are tweeted as they come in and this is usually during the last few days before the longlist announcement.
The very best of luck to all entrants, we can’t wait to see the votes!