The literary prize “Electronic Letter” was created by the liter group of companies in 2011 and since 2017 has been awarded to authors and digital readers from all over the world who have published works in Russian. In the sixth edition of the award, 2,337 applications from 32 countries were submitted: 21% more than last year. The total prize fund for the promotion of laureates amounted to more than 23 million rubles.
“Samizdat is one of the main drivers of the book market. Its share today is more than 35% of the entire digital book market. In 2023, about 45% of all copies of electronic textbooks sold by the liter were works of digital authors, and the author of the samizdat Andrey Vasilyev for the first time has surpassed publishers in terms of income, a segment that is also growing thanks to audiobooks: last year, the share of audio in the samizdat in Russia increased from 7 % to 10% The creativity of digital writers and readers significantly influences the book industry and is in great demand among the public, allowing them to “not only develop professionally, but also make money doing what they love. We want to see as much of this content as possible, and so that the audience of authors and digital readers constantly grows. The Electronic Letter Prize traditionally helps us achieve this goal,” – commented Sergei Anuriev, general director of the liter group of companies. .
The “Electronic Letter”-2023 shortlist included 10 authors and 10 readers. The winners of the award were determined by a special jury, which included: Alexander Tsypkin – writer, author of several bestsellers, screenwriter, founder of the literary and theatrical project “Unprincipled Readings”, Sergei Chonishvili – theater and film actor, writer and television . presenter Yuri Stoyanov – People’s Artist of Russia and comedian Ksenia Burzhskaya – author, poet and journalist, writers Oksana Vasyakina and Vera Bogdanova, philologist and cultural critic Nikolai Zharinov, radio and television presenter Anton Komolov, actors from dubbing Daria Blokhina and Dmitry Cherevatenko.
In the main nomination “Book of the Year”, the victory was won by the Bryansk author Nikolai Obodnikov with the mystical thriller “The Mermaids of Amaya” about a brutal crime with ritual overtones. The book takes place on the fictional island of Onega Bay: Sirens of Amaya. Nikolai’s book was noticed by the prize coordinator and head of book projects at the Eksmo publishing house, Yulia Selivanova, at the long-list stage, and in October 2023, the publishing house published the work in paper format.
“This year, action-packed things prevailed in the award final: detective stories, thrillers and fantasy with a touch of horror. In general, this coincides with the main trend of Russian-language prose from the previous year, and the one is coming also. I liked several works, but I highlighted the novel “Mermaids” Amaya by Nikolai Obodnikov.” Despite some excesses in the plot, I liked the dynamics of the novel, the pseudo-documentary part of the story and the way the intrigue develops. It is twisted and all the lines are joined together. This is a good example of genre prose,” said Vera Bogdanova.
The jury recognized the Moscow reader Grigory Metelitsa as “Voice of the Year.” Grigory has extensive experience in dubbing: he recorded several dozen books by the liter, participated in dubbing advertisements, movie trailers and even tried his hand at dubbing for television series. He has already been a finalist for the “Electronic Lyrics” award twice, and this year he earned a long-awaited victory in the main category.
“Last year I already listened to the works of Grigory Metelitsa and noticed a high level of professionalism. We have the right arrangements, pauses, no stretching, no heaviness and at the same time a perfectly maintained rhythm,” shared Daria Blokhina. the impressions of him.
Nikolai Obodnikov and Grigory Metelitsa each received 300,000 rubles in liters and promotion in all services of the group of companies. In addition, the winners received special prizes from the general partners of the award – the global technology brand Realme and the research and development center “Octave Design and Marketing”: Nikolay received an exclusive camera phone Realme 12 Pro+ and Gregory received the Octave OWS- U1200H. Digital broadcasting system.
The winners in the “Debut” nomination were also announced: Karina Finkel won among authors with her work “The Abyss” and Roman Andronov among readers. They received 100,000 rubles from the Litros group of companies.
The winners in special categories were:
1. “Love in every word” from the popular women’s publication Wday.ru: “Escape from Atahail”, Veronica Yakzhina;
2. “Octava’s choice” of the general partner – R&D Center “Octava Design and Marketing”: reader Andrey Finagin;
3. “Bestseller”: “Guardian of the Swamps”, Natalya Timoshenko;
4. “The most controversial ending”: “We are your friends”, Vlad Raiber;
5. “Relevance is eternal”: “The mountains promised you”, Sasha Nekrasova;
6. “A novel of growth”: “In Kitezh. The return of Kuzar. Part I”, Marta Zilanova;
7. “Unreal reality”: “Bear’s Milk”, Elena Ershova.
