An exclusive interview with Tatiana Wilson of The People’s Book Prize…

I  am the founder and Administrator of The People’s Book Prize.   I was  inspired by the frustration that so much talent is being wasted and lost. 

I  received fantastic encouragement and support from the late Beryl Bainbridge who  became our founding patron.  Her warm words at TPBP’s launch will continue  to guide us forward.

“Something  like this, this idea — which is absolutely amazing – once it takes off, it will  be of enormous importance to writers. I  look forward to the time when we mention this particular prize as the greatest – and look back – and remember I was at the meeting at the London Book Fair and  think where it has gone!  So I wish it tremendously good  luck.”  See more here...

Tell  us about some of the challenges you faced when setting up these  awards?

Mainly  financial.   It is very difficult to get financial backing for a new  idea.   So I invested my own money and whilst the investment is considerable for me it is still small to enable us to compete with huge  marketing budgets in the industry.   But we are getting there.

Why did you decide to let people vote for the winners, rather than  adopting the traditional judging process used by most book awards?

Authors  write for the people so it is befitting that it should be the people who vote  for their favourites.  I quote:   “When an author writes a book  he wants to be loved and appreciated and read by the public – so it would mean  so much for my author to be selected as a winner by the people he has written  the book for.” Vivian Akinpelu, Pneuma Springs Publishing – Two Little Dicky  Birds by Neal James – TPBP 2012 Fiction Finalist.

What  opportunities does The People’s Book Prize create for newly published  writers?

The  competition offers a unique opportunity to market new titles, many of which  remain obscure due to the difficulties of showcasing undiscovered or first time  authors.   It offers them a  platform they may not otherwise have.

Please  tell us more about your work in schools and your Eradicate Illiteracy  campaign?

One  in five of the British population cannot read.  I label illiteracy the ‘intellectual cancer of society’ which needs to be eradicated.

Thanks  to the public, TPBP discovered and recognised the importance of YES WE CAN READ and authors Libby Coleman and Nick Ainley were presented with the 2011 TPBP Best  Achievement Award.

So  TPBP initiative is to get the WHOLE Nation Reading and with an inaugural  donation of £5,000 from TPBP 2010 Non-Fiction Award Winner, Brett Alegre-Wood,  author of bestselling book THE 3 + 1, TPBP project to eradicate illiteracy has  been launched.   Read more here...

YES WE CAN READ is the tool that enables anyone who can read fluently to teach a  non-reader of any age in 6 months or less.   It also helps with  dyslexia and could be adopted by schools.  

It  is our hope that others will share our determination to improve somebody’s qualify of life and support TPBP initiative which is to donate copies of YES WE CAN READ through libraries and other institutions.

Why  do you support initiatives like Brit Writers’ Awards?

I think the Brit Writers’ Awards are a superb idea.   They offer  opportunity and they are doing now what The People’s Book Prize had hoped to do  in the future:  to add Self Published and Manuscripts to our existing  categories:  Fiction, Non Fiction, Children’s, The Beryl Bainbridge for  First Time Author and Best Achievement, the criteria of which is the  book with outstanding content that would or could or did lead to excellent  results in relation to a commendable community cause.

At  the moment the Rules of Entry specify that it is the Publisher who submits the  title.  As our resources are limited we do not have the manpower to go through manuscripts and so it falls to the publisher who would have done  this.

We  understand you will be our guest at this year’s Brit Writers’ Awards?

Great  honour.   And I have invited Imran Akram,  the Founder and Chief  Executive of Brit Writers,  to present The Beryl Bainbridge Award for  First Time Author at our 4^th Award Ceremony on 30^th May  2013.  

What would you like to say to anyone reading this right now?

Never  give up.   The opportunity is there, grasp it and make it yours.   The opportunity makes the future.   And together we shall  succeed.

If  it weren’t for the enthusiasm of a young girl, J.K. Rowling would never have  been discovered.  It was Alice Newton, the eight-year-old daughter of  Bloomsbury’s chairman, who is credited with ‘discovering’ the author, after  being given the first three chapters of The Philsopher’s Stone to read.