The Festival’s aim is to discover the best new fiction and non-fiction titles in UK publishing.

It will incorporate nine Hearst brands, including Good Housekeeping, Cosmopolitan, Prima, Harper’s Bazaar, Esquire, ELLE, Red, Women’s Health and Men’s Health, with each brand being assigned a relevant category.

The Big Book Awards will invite publishers to submit exciting and emerging work, published between June 1, 2017 and May 31, 2018, across these categories.

Judith Secombe, Managing Director of Hearst Brand Services, said: “Books are a natural fit for us at Hearst, with both our consumers and Editors having such an inherent passion for quality content. By creating the Big Book Festival, we’re aiming to help boost the amazing work of authors across the country, as well as offering publishers the chance to amplify their consumer outreach campaigns by having the Hearst stamp of approval.”

She continued, “We want to offer publishers the chance to be involved in a fully authentic retail endorsement campaign – and with 1 in 3 adults who purchased a book in the last 12 months being a Hearst consumer – this is it!”

Hearst will ask its Reader Panel to review the titles selected at the first stage. Following reader feedback, the books that score the highest will be put forward for review by the Editors of the nine participating brands.

Using the combined scores from Hearst readers and Editors, a shortlist of titles in each category will be announced in June.

The final winners will be announced at a celebratory event in summer 2018.

Alongside the awards, Hearst will launch Big Book Live, a series of live experiences in London that focuses on bringing the pages and themes of the shortlisted books to life.

The full list of categories in the Big Book Festival are:

• Crime – Good Housekeeping

• Must Reads – Cosmopolitan

• Page Turners – Prima

• Modern Classics – Harper’s Bazaar

• Biography – Esquire

• Women Writers – ELLE

• Non Fiction and Children’s – Red

• Wellbeing – Women’s Health

• Health and Lifestyle – Men’s Health