Quill Awards revamp process

Still struggling to gain a foothold with authors and the public, the Quill Awards announced Thursday a new process for nominating and selecting its prizes for best books of the year.

Created two years ago as a populist answer to the National Book Awards and Pulitzers, in which winners are selected by small committees, the Quills previously culled finalists from nominations by about 6,000 booksellers and librarians, then had the public vote to choose the winners in 19 categories. But the voting generated little interest, and many nominees didn’t show up for the awards ceremony.

This year, nominations will be made by editors at the trade magazine Publishers Weekly, which organizers hope will ensure a better representation of both commercial and literary works. The booksellers and librarians will then vote on winners. Once those are announced Sept. 10, the public will have the opportunity to vote online to select one of the 19 winners as book of the year.

That announcement will be made at the awards ceremony in New York Oct. 22, with the proceedings taped for broadcast on some NBC stations Oct. 27.