A New Bestseller Award for Indian Books Gets Its First Ceremony in New Delhi

NielsenIQ BookData and the Indian Authors Forum have launched a new award that will be built on book sales and reader votes. The Bestseller Awards, India Edition, was announced on 5 November 2026, and its inaugural ceremony is set for 17 January 2027 in New Delhi.

The ceremony will take place alongside the New Delhi World Book Fair 2027, the book fair held in the Indian capital. Publishing Perspectives reported the launch and the dates.

The first edition will honour books by Indian authors published in English and Hindi. Eligible titles must have come out between 1 March 2016 and 30 September 2026, a window of roughly ten and a half years.

There are four categories in the first year: adult fiction, adult non-fiction, children's fiction and debut authors. A debut is a writer's first published book. The organisers have also created a special Hall of Fame for authors whose books have sold consistently well across several years.

The process starts with numbers. NielsenIQ BookScan, a service that records sales at the tills of participating bookshops and online retailers, will decide the shortlist, which is the group of finalists. Readers will then vote to choose the winners.

That mix matters for both sides of the trade. Authors and publishers know which titles sold in the window, and readers get a direct say in the final result. Shoppers who follow Indian fiction and non-fiction now have a new list to watch as the ceremony approaches.

The announcement did not name the judges, the shortlist size or the voting dates. Those details will follow as the awards develop ahead of January.