The cupboards are full to bursting, the judges mopping their brows as they start to fill nine slots on the 2014 Guardian first book award longlist from the publishers' nominations. But now it's your chance to help us find the 10th, as we throw the doors wide for readers to tell us about this year's most exciting debut.
Last year saw a triumph for poetry, as Claire Trévien's Shipwrecked House was voted on to the 2013 longlist . She followed in the footsteps of Sarah Jackson, whose collection Pelt was longlisted in 2012, and Juan Pablo Villalobos, whose novel Down the Rabbit Hole was the first readers' selection back in 2011.
We're searching across every genre for this year's most impressive first books – from pop psychology to pop history and from graph-filled analysis to graphic novel. Over recent years the award has gone to the biography of a street sleeper, a cultural history of mountains and a polyphonic lament for rural life in post-crash Ireland.
Nominations must be published in the UK between 1 January 2014 and 31 December 2014, and they must be published in print. They must be the author's first book to be published in English anywhere in the world – translations must be within five years of the work's publication in the original language. For further details, take a look at the terms and conditions.
With our cupboards already chock-a-block with publishers' nominations, we want to hear from readers who have found themselves astonished and amazed. We're especially keen to hear about authors working outside the mainstream, about publishers who are small and new, about those who struggle to be heard above the roar of the 170,000 titles published in the UK every year.
To make your nomination, just give us the details of your choice in the thread below before midnight on 13 July, along with the word "nomination" and a paragraph or two to let us know about the book and why it deserves to win the First book award. A link to the publisher's website would be helpful too, if you can dig one out.
That's all we need to get looking for the best of this year's debuts – so let's get searching.
• Terms and conditions for recommending a book
