Thanks to tablets and eReaders, the definition of a book is expanding. So much so that the National Book Foundation has accepted its first interactive eBook as a submission to the National Book Awards this year.
In an interview with inReads, National Book Foundation executive director Harold Augenbraum explained that the book did not fit into the existing submission guidelines and the judges consider changing those rules every year.
He explained: “We go over the guidelines ever year. When people point out things that could be changed, we discuss them and whether changes need to be made. We’re open to this. We recently had a submission for the Awards and it was an app book [meant to be read on the iPad]. One of the rules is that you have to be able to print the book and submit it on paper, but this was a book with text and graphic and video. There are going to be high quality books that will only be published as ebooks and we will need to figure out how to handle that with our judges.”
The Foundation received 1222 submissions this year: 311 novels, 441 nonfiction books, 191 poetry books and 279 in young peoples’ literature