On Thursday, May 2, New York City hosted this year’s prestigious Benjamin Franklin Awards ceremony, sponsored by the Publishers Marketing Association (PMA), the nation’s largest non-profit trade association representing independent publishers. Each year, the PMA recognizes outstanding publishing achievements in a variety of categories. For 2002, a panel of 150 judges including booksellers, reviewers, librarians, and book designers, reviewed more than 1,400 entries to choose the winners. This year, Mandeville Press won the award for Best Designed and Effective WWW Homepage — another feather in the cap for the Mandeville Press and its mission of making the teachings of the spiritual heart available to all.
Mandeville Press team members Vincent Dupont, Stede Barber, Angel Gibson, Doug Gibson, and Marie Leighton attended the awards gala, a publishing world version of the Oscars, joining a ballroom filled with publishers of all walks and genres. The evening had all the trappings of an Oscars event — a banquet of buffet food, a crowded room, and an air of anticipation to hear the results for each category.
PMA Executive Director Jan Nathan announced the winners, taking a hi-tech approach to “the envelope please”” Each finalist’s book cover, catalog, or web site was displayed for the room on a huge screen in the banquet hall, followed by the winner’s artwork standing alone once announced. Each winner came up to the podium to give a few words — and one of the best parts of the evening was hearing different publishers share their personal stories of the teamwork, love, and effort that went into their books and catalogs.
When Mandeville Press was announced as the winner for Best Web Site, Vincent Dupont, Vice-President, gladly bounded to the stage to accept the award, noting the efforts of the web design team and webmaster, Deborah Martinez. Vincent shared that the web site was designed very consciously to meet the needs of the public, the industry, and journalists, and that we wanted to create a site that was user-friendly and attractive. And, without missing a beat, Vincent closed his remarks with an invitation for people to come and visit the web site themselves, and check out the good books!
Mandeville Press was a finalist for two additional awards during the ceremony, Best Consumer Catalog and Best Trade Catalog. While those awards went to other publishers, it was a great thrill to see the catalog displayed on the big screen and acknowledge the work of catalog designers Stede Barber and David Sand.
The awards ceremony was a great kick-off to the annual Book Expo America in New York, the largest annual book publishing trade event in the United States. Mandeville Press again had a booth at the expo this year, with a special book autographing session with John-Roger for his new release, “Loving Each Day for Peacemakers”. John Morton was also on hand, to meet people, sign books, and share loving. People were consistently drawn to the “Peacemakers” book with its beautiful cover, and more and more people in the industry would stop by and say, “Oh, Mandeville Press. I know you guys.” It was a great weekend for making connections and sharing loving, as the blessings roll on and on.
Visit the Mandeville Press web site at www.mandevillepress.org
