It’s that time of year again: the Man Booker judges are preparing to unveil the longlist for one of the world’s leading literary awards, at noon (UK time). And it’s a perennial pleasure to predict which of the novels published in the previous year will make it into the “Man Booker dozen” – which could add up to as many as 13 titles.

Stuart Kelly, one of last year’s judges, confessed on the books blog that “any predictions I make … will most likely be wrong. Even before I was a judge in 2013, I realised that one should probably judge the judges, not the novels, if one were planning a trip to the turf accountant’s.” Nevertheless, he highlighted some of the books we know will be considered – Ian McEwan’s The Children Act, Will Self’s Shark, David Mitchell’s The Bone Clocks, Nicola Barker’s In The Approaches, Ali Smith’s How To Be Both, Alan Warner’s Their Lips Talk Of Mischief - as well as a couple whose glowing review coverage makes them likely contenders, Philip Hensher’s The Emperor Waltz and Neel Mukherjee’s The Lives of Others.

There has been much discussion about how the longlist will be affected by this year’s change in the rules, which means that any English-language writers can now participate, as long as they’re published in the UK. The burning question is thus how many US authors (if any) will make the cut – and that makes this stage even more interesting.

So drumrolls, please: the organisers themselves have been stoking anticipation this week with a pictorial reminder of longlisted titles from past years. Soon we’ll have another Booker dozen to add to their ranks.

Who do you think will be on the longlist? And now that it’s open to US writers, what proportion of authors will be from the US, the UK and the rest of the world? Make your predictions in the comment thread below.