penguin. random house penguin. random house. and the winner of this year's national book award in fiction is. first of all, everett bridget. brennan for. if there are a few horses in here, i feel a lot better. i, i want to thank the national foundation and the judges for putting their reputations on the line here. just like kate am not very good at this. so i did appeal to the the chat jpt and and then i asked the apple intelligence on my phone to improve it. then i gave it a pass to siri and alexa fixed it up and they came up with this now is the time for all good people to come to the aid of the party. though this is no doubt very true. it's a terrible acceptance speech and i apologize. it's just another illustration that artificial intelligence is no substitute for the real thing. and two weeks ago, i was feeling pretty low. and to tell the truth i still feel pretty low. and as i look out this so much excitement about books i have to say i do feel some hope, but it's important to remember. and so that last line is that hope r

norton and company, and martyr, randomhouse, and everett james, miranda july, river head books, penguin random houseal to the chatgpt, and then i asked the apple intelligence on my phone to improve it and then i gave it a pass to siri and alexa fixed it up. and i came up with this. now is the time for all good people to come to the aid of the party, though this is, no doubt, very true, it's a terrible acceptance speech and i apologize. it's yet another illustration that artificial intelligence is no substitute for the real thing. two weeks ago i was feeling pretty low, and to tell the truth, i still feel pretty low. as i look out at this, so much excitement about books, i have to say i do feel some hope. it's important to remember, and i said that last time, that hope is really no substitution for strategy. i owe a lot of thanks to my publisher, bill thomas. to my sac >> to my sadistic publicist, michael goldsmith, and to everybody at double day. i have to say that i also owe some thanks to gray wolf press. [ applause ] >> and my editor there for 30 years, mccray. and with great affection, somebody

and those are penguin random house hatchet book group, harpercollins. simon and schuster and macmillan. so those are the big five. and they have many imprints. that means that 40%, the rest of the sales come from independent presses. these can be anywhere from like norton's catapult. gravel's source books, wiley kensington chronicle. some of them, of course, are big enough to compete with the big five presses. they have similar business models, but they're also then are smaller, independent presses and are university presses as well. so i want to talk with start with you first. maybe i'll start with you, nina. you have had a number of books. this is your fifth book and you've really dealt with the different kinds of independent presses. what brought you to these presses? maybe the last two books. how did you come to work with them? and what about them? can you tell us about them? what about them appealed to you? well, i'll first talk about afterword, which was published by clash books in there in new york, kind of a three person independent press. and a

thank you to penguin random house. thank you to our gold sponsor amazon literary partnership. our silver sponsors amazon, mgm studios, barnes and noble, bpg usa, central national gotsman. thank you mcmillan publishers and simon and schuster. thank you, thank you all. okay. thank you all so the following individuals for their exceptional generosity. karen and marcus dole. the steven m. and joyce trust. the susan m. wallace foundation. tell susan we thanked her, ken. and debra wily. i'm going to ask some of the people in this room to stand up. if you are a national book award honoree, past or present, that's a finalist, a long lister, or a national book award winner, 5 under 35. could you please stand right now? thank you. okay. all right. not done though. all right. okay, stay standing here, because if you are a board member of the national book foundation, current or past, please stand up. all right. and lastly, if you are a member of the national book foundation staff, past or present, please join us and stand up. yeah. so please look around. you are all part of our 75 year h