The Publishing Innovation Awards honor the most innovative ebooks, enhanced ebooks, and book apps in 14 categories. It is the mission of the PIAs to highlight excellent publishers/authors, encourage new thinking, and improve the reading experience in the digital age.

New to the Publishing Innovation Awards this year is the QED Seal, which stands for Quality, Excellence, Design. Ebook titles entered into the Publishing Innovation Awards will go through a thorough, professional 13-point design review with an eye towards readability across multiple devices and in multiple formats. The QED aims to be a “Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval” for ebooks – it signals to an ebook reader that the title will render well in whatever their preferred reading format and that they can buy with confidence.

The Awards were founded for publishers, authors, developers, and smart thinkers who are pushing the boundaries of what’s possible. Winners are relentlessly focused on improving the book experience in the 21st century, whether through solid design or interactivity or social elements. If you or your company takes the job of disseminating amazing work seriously, then the PIAs are for you.

ADVISORY COUNCIL

The judging criteria and the QED were created in partnership with leading digital publishing design and production experts, who make up the advisory council. The advisory council provides input and information on the evolution of the awards so that the PIAs remain true to their mission of encouraging high-quality digital publishing.

The members of the advisory council are:

Angela Bole
(Deputy Executive Director of the Book Industry Study Group, Inc.)
Angela Bole was appointed Deputy Executive Director of the Book Industry Study Group, Inc. (BISG) in March 2009, having previously served two years as Associate Director and two years as Marketing and Communications Manager. Working closely with members and non-members alike, she has been instrumental in furthering BISG’s mission of creating a more informed, empowered and efficient book industry supply chain for both physical and digital products.

Peter Costanzo
(Creative Director, NBC Publishing)
Peter Costanzo is the Creative Director at NBC Publishing. He also teaches the Introduction to Interactive Media course at NYU. Follow him on Twitter: @PeterCostanzo.

Colleen Cunningham
(Senior Book Designer, Adams Media)
Colleen Cunningham is Senior Book Designer at Adams Media, a division of F+W Media, Inc.. After getting her start in newspaper and magazine production, she has found her home in book layout and design, focusing on trade non-fiction in categories as diverse as humor, self-help, cooking, and business.

Liza Daly
(Principal, Threepress Consulting)
Liza Daly is the president of Threepress Consulting and an experienced software engineer in digital publishing. In 2010, Threepress released Ibis Reader, an HTML5 ereader for mobile phones, web browsers and other internet-connected devices.

Ami Greko
(Senior Vendor Relations Manager, Kobo)
Ami Greko manages vendor relations in the US for Kobo ebooks. She is a founder of Book Camp NYC, an unconference for publishing types and readers, and co-curates and hosts the Ignite-style lecture series 7x20x21. A member of the PAMA and DBW advisory boards, Greko also presents regularly on digital marketing, including at the Frankfurt Book Fair, the LA Times Book Festival, and New York University. You can find her online on Twitter and on Tumblr as ami_with_an_i, and in real life probably in a bookstore in Brooklyn.

Christina Biamonte Faubert
Content Account Manager, eBooks
Christina Biamonte Faubert is the Content Account Manager, eBooks for Sony ReaderStore. With a Masters of Science in Publishing from New York University and after working for 10 years in the children’s book publishing arena, Christina uses her experience and background to bring new content to ReaderStore’s catalog as well as to foster optimal business partnerships with publishers.

Anne Kostick
(Principal, Foxpath IND)
Anne Kostick is a partner in Foxpath IND, a digital-print-web consulting and services company specializing in the transition to and from traditional content development, management and publishing. She is also the editor in chief of Dulcinea Media, an online publisher in the educational market, and is the current president of Women’s Media Group.

Matthew LeBlanc
(Manager of Production and Prepress, Adams Media)
Matthew Leblanc is the Manager of Production and Prepress, for Adams Media, a division of F+W Media, Inc.. Matt’s experience is rooted in graphic arts, graphic design, and fine arts. He spent several years working in the printing industry, in both commercial print and packaging where he concentrated in prepress, prepress management, and digital workflow development.

Peter Meyers
Author and Digital Book Producer
Peter Meyers is an author and digital book producer. He writes about and helps companies create reader-friendly digital books. Author of Best iPad Apps (O’Reilly, 2010), Peter’s next book is Breaking the Page: Transforming Books and the Reading Experience (O’Reilly, 2011). Peter blogs at www.newkindofbook.com and can be found on Twitter @petermeyers.

Liz Scheier
(Editorial Director, Digital Content, Barnes & Noble)
After a decade as an editor at Random House and Penguin, Liz Scheier is now the Editorial Director of Digital Content at Barnes & Noble.com. She creates new kinds of text-based, enhanced, and cross-platform content in the digital space, and works on special projects and promotions around ebooks. She is a frequent speaker at conferences and conventions across the country, and teaches workshops on craft, marketing, and new media.

Joshua Tallent
(President, eBook Architects)
Joshua Tallent has been an eBook developer since 2002. He is an acknowledged expert on the Kindle and ePub formats, and his book, Kindle Formatting: The Complete Guide, has been praised as the most thorough explanation of the Kindle format available. Joshua founded eBook Architects, his eBook design and consulting business, in 2008, providing services to both publishers and authors, with a focus on complex projects and enhanced eBooks.