Using Awards Lists As A RA Tool: The Shamus Award Finalists

This is part of my ongoing series on using Awards Lists as a RA tool. Click here for all posts in the series in reverse chronological order. Click here for the first post which outlines the details how to use awards lists as a RA tool.

The Shamus Awards have long been one of my favorite awards because while not all awards lists are as useful as a readalike tool, the Shamus Awards are 100% that. Why? Because they all feature Private Eyes, a very popular subgenre with mystery readers. PI readers in general, but not always, tend to enjoy any PI titles. Speaking of, the Private Eye Writers of America have this great definition of the subgenre; it is great to use when working with readers to gauge their personal appeal preferences.

Before I get to this year's Shamus nominees, I want to give some background on how I used this award with readers because my personal experience has a lot of takeaways behind this specific award. And then we will get to this year's nominees. 

Many moons ago [at least 12 years ago],  I started a "Holds Without Hassle" program at my old library. We allowed patrons to give us a list of the authors whose books they always wanted every time a new one came out. This program allowed our regular patrons to get on the holds list early, but it also gave us clues as to which books we would need to add extra copies for AND which types of authors were our most popular so that we could actively add readalike authors and new voices who were similar. All of this helped us to craft a better local collection while also anticipating demand.

While many libraries have programs like this now, and even a few did back then, one of the things we did a bit differently was to not only allow them to list authors they enjoyed, but we also listed the major awards with a description of what those awards were given out for. And people could choose all nominees or just winners! [So this using awards lists as a RA tool thing is old hat to me. I was doing it long before this series of posts began.]

This choosing to put an award category of books on hold without asking option was wildly popular. It educated our patrons on the awards and introduced them to new authors on a regular basis.

Among the most often chosen awards was the Shamus Awards. And so we get back to the beginning. Like many libraries, mystery readers were among our most common patrons at the RA Service desk, and PI titles were in the top 3 of the most popular subgenres [only cozy mysteries and historical went before].

As a result, the Shamus Award announcements each year were a cause for celebration at my library.

So let's celebrate today on the blog!

Click here for the Private Eye Writers of America's announcement of the THE 2021 SHAMUS AWARD FINALISTS in 4 categories: Best PI Hardcover, Best PI Original Paperback, Best PI Short Story, and Best First PI Novel. 

And click here for backlist winners from 1982-present.

Remember, since most of these nominated novels are part of a series, you can identify a lot of titles to suggest AND purchase with the links above.

And of course, use the links at the top of the page for all of the ways you can use awards lists as a RA tool.