Not the Booker prize 2012: It's back. Nominate now

Now we've got the Booker longlist out of the way, it's time to get to grips with the only prize that really matters. Nominate now to help decide who will get British literature's most coveted mug
Guardian mug
Winning cup ... the Not the Booker prize winner can toast their victory with a Guardian mug. Photograph: Linda Nylind for the Guardian
Winning cup ... the Not the Booker prize winner can toast their victory with a Guardian mug. Photograph: Linda Nylind for the Guardian
Thu 26 Jul 2012 06.32 EDT

The Not the Booker prize is now entering its fourth year. Last time around, when (as maths geniuses will already have realised) it was three, I wrote that in human terms the award was "a toddler – walking, talking, refusing to eat vegetables and increasingly defiant". Well, this year, it's getting ready to go to school. It's just about to learn to swear, discover the truth about Father Christmas and realise that those in authority exist primarily to be jeered at and mocked.

Viewed in such terms, the prize gets ever more terrifying. Viewed in real terms it's got a fair bit of edge too. It's the award where just about anything can happen, after all. I don't dare make any predictions about how things are going to shape up, beyond the dead set certainty that it's going to be interesting.

This could be the year when Damien G Walter's campaign to get an SF book on the shortlist finally triumphs. It could, mirroring publishing's current obsession, be the year of bad porn. It could be the year an actual Booker nominee hits our shortlist. It could be the year we discover the next Denis Johnson – or it could be the year we uncover the next Jeffrey Archer. I don't know. Only you can decide. And to do so, all you have to do is nominate.

As far as nominating goes, I shan't lie to you. I won't say it couldn't be easier, because it could. Even so, the process isn't too difficult and it is good fun. Last year our request for reader interaction produced some fantastic results. It worked so well that this year (and this is a first) we aren't changing the rules at all.

Briefly:

The first thing to know is that we will use roughly the same entry criteria as the official Booker prize. That's to say, you can nominate:

• Any full-length novel (or at least, a long novella) written by a citizen of the Commonwealth, the Republic of Ireland or Zimbabwe.

• No English translation of a book written originally in any other language.

• No self-published books where the author is the publisher or where a company has been specifically set up to publish that book.

• The books have to have a scheduled publication date between 1 October 2011 and 30 September 2012.

Unlike the Booker panel, however, we aren't going to limit the number of entries per publisher. We also shan't be giving the winner any money.

The full terms and conditions are available here.

Now for the interesting bit. In order to vote for a book at the shortlist stage, you will have to demonstrate that you've actually read it (and aren't shamelessly logrolling) by posting a review (of not fewer than 100 words) of the book you favour on the Guardian's ever-expanding reader review pages. You will then have to link back to that review from your comment introducing the vote.

Confused? Don't worry. You've got a whole week to puzzle it over and ask questions in the comments below. I'll also explain the procedure in more detail at voting time.

For now, the important thing is to nominate.

All you have to do is name one book – and only one book – you'd like to see considered for the prize, in the comments section below. This time next week, I'll put up our annual longer-list of all the books put forward for selection, and round two will begin. In round two, you can vote for the book on the list that you'd most like to see go through – once you've written a review of it. The six books with the most votes will then go on to the next stage as our shortlist.

Once we have a shortlist, I'll read each book in turn, at the rate of roughly one a week, and post reviews inviting further discussion, argument, and ideally a bit of praise and a lot of love. After that, there'll be the adventure of the final vote – and then the announcement of the winner. As is traditional, we'll try and time it so that the results of the Not the Booker come out just before the Booker-proper. Partly to steal the prize's thunder, but mainly so that we don't get all tangled up.

Last year, there were some excellent, excellent books on the shortlist. The final was tightly (and amicably) fought, with three intelligent and gripping books eventually duking it out for the much-coveted mug. Happily, the winner was almost universally enjoyed. In short, it was a forum and platform for some of the year's very best writing. More of the same please. Let's go!

Actually ... let's pause for just one second. For quite a few reasons (the main one being that we enjoy being the dark shadow of the real Booker) we haven't allowed self-published books in the nominations this year. But leaving them out does seem increasingly anomalous in the brave new world of electronic publishing. So much so that we've even discussed the idea of a new and separate award for self-published novels. Any thoughts and suggestions in that direction would be very gratefully received.

Okay.

Now let's go!

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