'If they cease to exist, then e-books will only be worth the paper they are not printed on. 'I suspect that the advent of the e-book is fooling some people into believing that none of these people are necessary anymore or perhaps do not even exist,' Stiles said. When Stiles won the nonfiction award for The First Tycoon, his biography of Vanderbilt, he thanked a long list of people, including publicists, production managers, editorial assistants, editors, warehouse managers and bookstore owners, even book reviewers - all of whom, Stiles said, are needed to get a book into a reader's hands. There's a pluralism in publishing that I think is unprecedented, and I think there are so many signs of great things to come.' I think that this is the most exciting time.

'I feel like this is a golden time for publishing,' he said. In accepting the award, Eggers was unabashedly upbeat about the present and future of publishing. Author Dave Eggers, who runs 826 National, a nonprofit organization dedicated to teaching kids to write, was honored for outstanding service to the American literary community.

Authors, editors, publicists and publishers all gathered for the book world's most glittery event, dressed in their finest, but despite the festive air, the emcee, Comedian Andy Borowitz, tapped into the deepest fears of the publishing world by joking that everyone in attendance was on a sinking ship.īut the publishing world won't go down without a fight from the people who write the books. Those fears were in the air from the moment the awards began.

With the increasing popularity of electronic books and the threat they pose to traditional books, a sense of doom can seem to pervade the world of publishing. Stiles was awarded the nonfiction prize for The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt Keith Waldrop won the poetry award for his collection Transcendental Studies: A Trilogy and Phillip Hoose won the award for young person's literature for his biography Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice At an event that was shadowed with uncertainty about the future of publishing, many of the winners voiced optimism about the future of writing.Īmong those other winners, T.J. Colum McCann won the National Book Award for fiction Wednesday night for his novel Let the Great World Spin.

And the great world spins