We provided Britain’s best known literary prize with a new way of reaching book fans. The app provides users with the stories and stars from forty years of the prize, and delivers a new means of discovering nearby bookstores

For 40 years, The Man Booker Prize long list, shortlist and annual winner has been an anticipated source for finding and choosing the best literature available. But since the rise of e-books, the release of Amazon’s Kindle and Apple’s iPad and iPhone 4, The Man Booker Prize needed a way of staying current in today’s media landscape. Furthermore, with the rise of GPS on mobiles, The Man Booker team knew that it wasn’t enough to just recommend books to buy this year, but also where people could go to buy them.

We responded with the first literary iPhone app ever to feature a GPS enabled bookstore finder. This enabled users to find the closest location to purchase their chosen book as well as features such as includes full biographies for every author and members of The Man Booker Prize jury.  We used push notifications to alert users of The Man Booker’s longlist, shortlist and annual winner announcements as they occurred as well as a timeline giving users access to past year’s nominees. With so many books to choose from, we knew that users were going to want more on the featured books. The app thus provides full bibliographies and video interviews for all authors and written or audio excerpts for each title.

Finally, as well as providing details of nearby bookstores, the app also links to Amazon, Foyles, Play.com, Waterstones and WHSmith where users can order their chosen books online.

Links