In 2000 Carcanet was named the Sunday Times Millennium Small Publisher of the Year. Founded in 1962, four of its authors have received Nobel Prizes, nine have received the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry, and six have received Pulitzer Prizes. On many occasions Carcanet poets have claimed the highly prestigious TS Elliot Forward Poetry Prizes; most recently with On Balance by Sinead Morrissey.
Founded in 1969, Pluto Press is one of Britain’s oldest radical publishers and their focus remains making timely interventions in contemporary struggles. Throughout the years, their books have been awarded numerous prizes, for both their content and design, including the Palestine Book Award for On the Arab-Jew, Palestine, and Other Displacements by Ella Shohat, the ICA Book of the Year for Stitched Up by Tansy Hoskins in 2014 and Curationism by David Balzer in 2015 and the New York Times Book Cover of the Year in 2017 for The Communist Manifesto.
In 2002 Life of Pi by Yann Martel, published by Canongate won the Man Booker Prize for Fiction. It went on to be one of the bestselling Booker winners of all time.
In 2005 We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver, published by Serpent’s Tail won the Orange Prize for Fiction, with the Guardian calling it “the most remarkable Orange prize victor so far.”
In 2007, at the first year of the Independent Publishers Awards, Jessica Kingsley won the Publisher of the Year for "encapsulating the very best of independent publishing in the UK". In 2016 they won Independent Academic, Educational and Professional Publisher of the Year at the British Book Awards.
In 2012 The Garden of Evening Mists by Tan Twan Eng published by Myrmidon Books was shortlisted for the Booker. It didn’t win, but did pick up the Man Asian Literary Prize and the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction.
In 2014 Compass won the Services to Publishing Prize at the IPG Awards. The judges said that Compass “wins this award on the back of a host of glowing endorsements from client publishers, many of whom have been grateful for its help in building sales through bookshops for a long time. The Compass team are first rate. They are professional, experienced and effective and we recommend them wholeheartedly,” read one citation from an IPG member. Another added: “Their professional and broad knowledge of the UK market is second to none.”
In 2014 Crown House won Education Publisher of the Year at the IPG Awards for the second year running. They publish titles on education, business training and personal growth, and have picked up many other prizes for their ground-breaking work. Release Your Inner Drive by Bradley Busch and Edward Watson was named the Gold Winner in the teen category of the 2018 IBPA Benjamin Franklin Awards.
In 2017 Birlinn won the Saltire Society Publisher of the Year. Many of its titles have also won prizes – including the novels of Alexander McCall Smith, who has been appointed a CBE for Services to Literature and Dame Muriel Spark who was twice been shortlisted for the Booker and was awarded Golden PEN Award for a Lifetime's Distinguished Service to Literature. Birlinn are publishing all of Spark’s titles in special centenary editions in 2018.
In 2018 Emerald Publishing won Professional Publisher of the Year at the IPG Awards. “Emerald is a big company now, but it’s stayed nimble and responsive to customers,” said the judges. “What it’s achieved in the last year is very impressive.”
In 2018 Hummingbird by Tristan Hughes, published by Parthian won the Edward Stanford Travel Writing Award. Parthian have previously picked up awards for the Wales Book of the Year and the PEN Translates prize for Women Who Blow on Knots by Ece Temelkuran, translated from the Turkish by Alexander Dawe.
Also winning Pen Translates Awards are titles by Comma and And Other Stories. Books are selected for these awards on the basis of both their outstanding literary quality, and also their contribution to literary diversity in the UK. The Comma titles are The Book of Cairo edited by Raph Cormack and a debut collection by Sudanese author Rania Mamoun entitled Thirteen Months of Sunrise which is translated from Arabic by Lissie Jacquette. And Other Stories have The Remainder by Alia Trabucco Zerán, translated from Spanish by Sophie Hughes and To Leave with the Reindeer by Olivia Rosenthal, translated from French by Sophie Lewis.