mmmm, prizes

Hooray! We're nominated for some prizes! Hoo-hrayyyy!

I'm not really allowed to enter prizes. See, sometimes I phone Rob up and say 'I'm *soooo* busy, too busy to even have this conversation actually.' And he'll say 'Why, Em? What have you got to do?' And then I'll reel off all sorts of things that I've taken on that I don't really have to do, like rewrite our entire website from scratch, or offer to do some work for another company, or, my favourite, enter a load of prizes. I create a rod for my own back, I do.

Still, I only do it because I love this company to bits, and why wouldn't I want it to do as well as it possibly can? And how lovely it is when it comes good. So... long preamble over. We've been nominated for two (wheee!) awards at the IPG awards. More info below!

Bertrams | THE Trade Publisher of the Year: the shortlist is Michael O'Mara Books, Search Press, Snowbooks and Summersdale Publishers. The judges said: "Snowbooks impressed the judges with its strong trade presence, outstanding website [hah, was worth it then] and creative approach to its books and marketing. "The energy of this innovative company fizzes off the page." " Heh. Fizzy. Good luck to Summersdale, too - those lovely boys are smashing and helped us no end when we first started out. Group hug!

Nielsen Innovation of the Year: the shortlist is Salt Publishing, Snowbooks and Weird Grape. The judges said: "Snowbooks was listed for successfully managing [er, writing all the code from scratch for, you mean] its own XSL project to make data management easier. Judges were impressed by the achievement of the initiative on small resources, leading to saved time and increased sales. "Snowbooks has realised the importance of its data and found an innovative way of making the most of it." " And good luck to Salt too - a fine, fine company.

So there you go. The ceremony is March 8th. And guess what? March 2008 is our fifth birthday. Nice of the industry to lay on a fancy birthday party for us...