Celebrating 25 Years of Great Taste in Southern Literature!

This week SIBA announced the finalists for the 2024 Southern Book Prize (SBP), and opened voting for the 2024 Winners. Read the press release and see the finalists.

The SBP ballot, which is open to the public, is now live at the link above and already votes are coming in. SIBA received several hundred votes, representing customers from over 50 SIBA bookstores, within the first 12 hours of the announcement. And because the last question on the ballot is "Say something nice about your local bookstore" we are also receiving some wonderful expressions of indie bookstore love:

"My local bookstore has the friendliest staff and the sweetest bookstore cats!" (E. Shaver Booksellers, Savannah, GA)

"When I go there, I feel like I’m in a Hallmark movie" (Greene Books, Athens, AL)

"New Dominion Bookshop makes Charlottesville, VA just a little bit brighter every day."

"Virginia Highlands Books (Atlanta, GA) is cozy and amazing. Exactly as a bookstore should be."

SIBA will share these comments as they come in, so be sure to follow us on Instagram to see them.

One of the goals of the Southern Book Prize program is to encourage readers to engage with their local bookstore around the question of what are "the best Southern books of the year." SIBA has created some tools to help stores make the most of the Southern Book Prize:

Embed the SBP ballot on your store website:
Bookstores can add the ballot directly to their websites and direct customers there to vote. Email nicki@sibaweb.com for the embed code, which works just like adding a YouTube video to your site.

Edelweiss collections of the finalists:
Fiction | Nonfiction | Children's & Young Adult

Automatic SBP discount at Ingram:
Ingram is offering an extra 2% on all the SBP finalists through December 11, 2023.  The discount will be automatically applied, no code necessary.

In-store signage:
Shelf Talker | SBP Fiction Flyer | SBP Nonfiction Flyer | SBP Children's and YA Flyer | SBP Finalists Poster

What booksellers have to say about the finalists:
All the SBP finalists have been bookseller favorite hand sells. Read what your fellow booksellers have to say about current and past finalist books on The Southern Bookseller Review.