Bea and Leah Koch, co-owners of the Ripped Bodice bookstore in Los Angeles, have launched the Ripped Bodice Awards for Excellence in Romance Fiction. Bookselling This Week reported that 12 honorees will be selected each year and "the only requirement is that the book must be published in the previous year and be a romance novel, meaning it has a central love story and a happy ending."
The inaugural Ripped Bodice Award winners will be announced on Valentine's Day 2020. Honorees will receive a cash prize of $1,000, as well as a $100 donation in their name to the charity of their choice. The monetary prizes are being furnished by sponsors, including Sony Pictures Television, with which the Kochs signed a first-look deal last year.
"Romance absolutely deserves to have multiple high-caliber awards, just like other genres," said Bea Koch.
The inaugural committee of judges features reviewers, tastemakers, bloggers and others from all over the romance community, BTW wrote, including New York Times romance columnist Jaime Green; tastemaker Ashley C. Ford; and blogger Corey Alexander. See the full list of judges here.
"There are a lot of different models that can be used," Leah Koch said. "We looked at how a bunch of other awards do things and consulted with people across the romance industry." Inspiration also came from the film industry, specifically the New York Film Critics Circle Awards.
She noted that "instead of having judges read specific books, we anticipate that through their regular jobs in the industry, they will read most major works throughout the year. With 17 judges who each read between 100 and 300 books a year, we're guaranteed to have eyeballs on at least 1,000 unique titles."
The Ripped Bodice Awards will not be divided into categories, which "limit your ability to judge the best work," Leah Koch observed. "Perhaps the sixth best historical novel was better than the best paranormal novel. We want to give our committee as much freedom as possible to truly identify the best work of the year."