Stack Awards: 2016 entries open

The Stack Awards launched last year with a simple idea – bring together a great team of judges to recognise the best work done by independent publishers, then have a big party.

As the dust settled at the end of last year I knew that I wanted to do it all again, and so today we’re announcing the launch of this year’s awards, along with a few improvements to help make them even bigger and better for 2016.

For starters there are the logos you can see above. I’m really proud to be partnering with WeTransfer and Mailchimp, and we’ll be using their support to do much more with the awards. I think it’s important that we keep the cost of entry as low as possible so that all independent publishers feel they can take part in the awards, and thanks to our sponsors we’re still able to charge just £30 per entry while making some important additions this year:

Judging day
Any awards programme stands or falls on the quality of its judging, and this year we’ll be beefing up the process with a dedicated judging day to bring together all the British and European judges for a full day of magazine deliberation, joined via Skype by our experts from the USA.

We’ll still send all the shortlisted magazines to our judges around the world, and they’ll still have a month to live with the magazines and get to know them, so by the time the judges come together they should be ready for some proper debate.

Shortlisted party
At the end of the judging day we’ll host a party to thank our judges and all the publishers whose magazines were shortlisted. Of course the judges will be sworn to secrecy about the identity of the winners, but the party will be an excellent opportunity for publishers to meet each other, and the experts who appraised their work.

Lending library
These awards are all about promoting the best independent publishing, and there’s no better way to appreciate a magazine than by sitting down with it for a couple of hours. So on Saturday 26 November we’ll host a pop-up lending library at Somerset House in London, giving people the opportunity to enjoy the magazines for themselves.

All the shortlisted magazines will be there, and visitors will be able to take a library ticket and borrow the magazines they want, heading off to a cafe, bar or other quiet place, and returning them afterwards.

More categories
We’re also adding more categories this year, which means more opportunities for publishers to win. You can see the full list of the categories and our judges on the awards page, which this year includes Editor of the Year, Art Director of the Year and Student Magazine of the Year, taking the tally to 10 judged awards, plus our Stack Subscribers’ Choice award.

We were completely blown away by the quality and variety of the magazines that were entered into the awards last year, and I can’t wait to see what comes our way this time. I think we’ve managed to include all the information publishers will need on the awards page, but of course just drop us a line if there’s anything you’re not sure about, and I’ll look forward to a lot of reading this summer and autumn!

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Do you publish your own independent magazine? Enter the awards and you could be picking up a prize in the ceremony on Tuesday 29 November