Bob Woffinden has been told his excellent Bad Show is ineligible for a Book Prize as he contributed to print costs. I was rejected from the Booker Prize consideration last year with Death Flies, Missing Girls and Brigitte Bardot (a much better novel than all 6 finalists) for a similar reason. Yet in this new age, more and more artistes are self publishing. We all know about music (Radiohead, Coldplay etc). Same for movies and books. Isn't it funny how "industry" awards are twenty years behind the times? You'd think a prize for Best Book should be awarded to the best book, wouldn't you? Silly rules like "you must not have red on your cover" or "no more that 346 pages allowed" have nothing to do with the quality of the text, just as price of budget should have nothing to do with the quality of a movie.
By the way, a great review of Bad Show in the current Spectator…
www.spectator.co.uk/life/the-wiki-man/94...-often-very-strange/
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