We are thrilled that She Writes Press and SparkPress are routinely two of the top awarded hybrid publishing imprints in the industry. Often, authors ask us which award contests are worth entering. We decided it would be beneficial to share this list of award contests we recommend. Keep it on hand for future entries—and good luck!
The American Fiction Awards – Sponsored by American Book Fest
Category Info: Over 80 categories to choose from (click here for full list)
Price: $69 per title/per category
Deadline: The final deadline is typically mid-July. Winners are usually announced late August.
Award Program Background: The 3rd Annual American Fiction Awards (AFA) are a new specialty book awards focused on honoring excellence in FICTION and are specifically designed to not only garner MEDIA COVERAGE & BOOK SALES for the winners & finalists but to PROMOTE awarded books to the PUBLISHING & ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRIES!
Prizes:
- Results Announced on American Book Fest’s Social Media Pages (134,000+ Fans/Friends)
- Promote Your Title as an Award-Winning Book: As a winner or finalist you will have the right to highlight your award on your book cover, website, and marketing material. Award stickers will be available for purchase for all winners & finalists in each category.
Best Book Awards – Sponsored by American Book Fest
Category Info: 100 categories to choose from (click here for full list)
Price: $69 per book/per category
Deadline: The final deadline is typically late September. Winners are usually announced mid-November.
Award Program Background: The Annual “Best Book” Awards are specifically designed to not only garner MEDIA COVERAGE & BOOK SALES for the winners & finalists but to PROMOTE awarded books to the PUBLISHING & ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRIES!
Prizes:
- AmericanBookFest.com Exposure: A Ten-Month Book Listing which includes your color book cover, a brief paragraph about your title and a hyperlink to your website (valued at $2,500.00!)
- Results Announced on American Book Fest’s Social Media Pages (134,000+ Fans/Friends)
- Promote Your Title as an Award-Winning Book: As a winner or finalist you will have the right to highlight your award on your book cover, website, and marketing material. Award stickers will be available for purchase for all winners & finalists in each category.
Chanticleer International Book Awards
Award Divisions: The CIBAs are split into 16 Fiction Genre divisions, 6 Nonfiction divisions, a Fiction Series division, and a division for short stories, essays, novelettes, and novellas. Each division has its own set of category requirements. See the full list of divisions you can enter here. Scroll to the bottom of the page for contest genre breakdown.
Price: The entry fee is $99 for Non-Members and $75 for Chanticleer Community Members per entry per category.
Deadline: The final deadlines vary by division, ranging between July and November. Winners are typically announced April of the following year.
Award Program Background: Today, readers now have over two million new titles a year vying for their attention. Being an excellent writer is no longer enough to be successful in today’s publishing universe. Chanticleer Book Reviews was founded to discover the best books and then help them to gain visibility in today’s highly competitive publishing market.
Prizes:
- All First in Category Winning Titles will be placed in the queue to receive a coveted Chanticleer Book Review Package (value $445) and go on to compete for the genre Grand Prize and the Overall Grand Prize.
- The Overall Grand Prize Winner is named Chanticleer Reviews Best Book of the Year and awarded the $1000 prize
- All Winners receive a Chanticleer Prize Package which includes a coveted prize ribbon, digital badges, and book stickers
More about CIBA prizes listed here.
Eric Hoffer Awards
Category info: Art, Poetry, Chapbook, General Fiction, Commercial Fiction, Children, Middle Reader, Young Adult, Historical Fiction, Mystery/Crime, Sci-Fi/Fantasy, Short Story/Anthology, Romance, Culture, Memoir, Business, Reference, Home, Health, Self-Help/Spiritual, Legacy Fiction, Legacy Nonfiction, E-book Fiction, and E-book Nonfiction.
Price: $60 / $40 for chapter books
Deadline: Since the registration desk remains open all year long, January 21 is the postmark cutoff date for all books either published or copyrighted in the prior two years from our annual January deadline. Winners are typically announced in May.
Award Program Background: Each year, independent publishers release extraordinary books to little or no recognition. The Eric Hoffer Book Award recognizes excellence in publishing. A single registration offers six ways to enter by genre, press, the Montaigne Medal, the da Vince Eye, the First Horizon Award, and the Hoffer grand prize. There is a category for every book.
Prizes:
- $2,500 GRAND PRIZE (the Eric Hoffer Award for Books)
- Winner of the Montaigne Medal for most thought-provoking books
- Winner of the da Vinci Eye for best covers
- Winner of the First Horizon Award for debut authors
- Winner and First Runner-Up awarded for every category
- Honorable Mentions for every category
- Coverage in The US Review of Books (theUSreview.com) and on www.HofferAward.com
- Gold Seal certificates
Foreword Indies
Category info: 56 top genres from indie presses
- Fiction—Fantasy; General; Historical; Humor; LGBTQ+; Literary; Multicultural; Mystery; Religious; Romance; Science Fiction; Short Stories; Thriller & Suspense; War & Military
- Adult Nonfiction—Adventure, Sports & Recreation; Art; Autobiography & Memoir; Biography; Body, Mind & Spirit; Business & Economics; Career; Cooking; Ecology & Environment; Education; Essays; Family & Relationships; Grief/Grieving; Health; History; Hobbies & Home; Humor; LGBTQ+; Multicultural; Nature; Performing Arts & Music; Photography; Poetry; Political and Social Sciences; Popular Culture; Psychology; Reference; Regional; Religion; Science; Self-Help; Travel; War & Military; Women’s Studies
- Anthologies
- Graphic Novels & Comics
- Children’s—Juvenile Fiction; Juvenile Nonfiction; Picture Books; Picture Books, Early Reader; Young Adult Fiction
- General—Coffee Table Books
Price: $99 per entry, and $79 for additional categories.
Deadline: Deadline is January 31 of award year. Finalists are announced end of March. Winners are announced in June.
Award Program Background: Since its creation in 1998, the Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Awards has served to showcase the talent of established university and independent press titles, as well as emerging authors who self-publish. Well aware of the challenges faced by small publishers, our goal is to highlight deserving books—those that not only meet our editorial standards, but also blow our minds—to our audience of librarians, booksellers, industry professionals, and other book lovers, domestically and internationally.
Prizes:
- Winners showcased in Foreword print edition, digital newsletters, and international media list
- $1,500 cash prize—one for fiction, the other nonfiction
- Promoted on Foreword social media channels
- Press releases will be sent to Foreword’s 10,000+ list of media and industry professionals
- Finalists and winners recieve a Foreword INDIES marketing toolkit
- Gold, Silver, Bronze, and Honorable Mention winners will receive 500 foil seals for book covers
IBPA Benjamin Franklin Awards
Category info: (full list)
- 42 Print Book categories
- 11 Design & Other categories
- 3 Featured categories
Deadline: Final deadline is in December. Winners are announced in May of following year.
Price:
- Current IBPA Members: $95 per title/per category (i.e., $95 for the initial entry; $95 for additional entries)
- Fee for non-members of IBPA:
$229 for the initial entry; $95 for additional entries
$95 per title/per category, plus $134 to cover annual IBPA membership fee (an annual membership fee savings of from $6 to $335 depending on size of company)
Award Program Background: Over this time, the IBPA Benjamin Franklin Award™ for excellence in book publishing has become one of the highest national honors for independent publishers. The IBPA Benjamin Franklin Award™ program is unique in that all entrants receive direct feedback on their entries. Winning an IBPA Benjamin Franklin Award™ expands a publisher’s marketability and solidifies its credibility.
Prizes:
- Recognition prior to the awards ceremony on the IBPA website.
- Archived listing after the awards ceremony on the IBPA website.
- Two tickets to the awards ceremony recognizing all of the award winners.
- 15% off all IBPA marketing programs during the book(s) winning year.
- A press release template to use when personally announcing the winning book(s).
- A personalized award certificate.
- Special award stickers to affix to the winning books.
International Book Awards
Category info: (full list)
- 32 categories
Price: $69-$89 per title/per category.
Deadline: Final Deadline is in April of award year. Winners are announced in June.
Award Program Background: The Annual International Book Awards (IBA 2020) are specifically designed to be a promotional vehicle for authors and publishers to launch their careers, open global markets and compete with talented authors and publishers throughout the world.
Prizes:
- Results Announced on our Network of Social Media Pages (Over 134,000 Book Fans!)
- Results listed on InternationalBookAwards.com!
- Promote Your Title as an Award-Winning Book: As an honored winner or finalist you will have the right to highlight your award on your book cover, website, and marketing material. Award stickers will be available for purchase for all winners & finalists in each category!
IPPYs
Deadline: All entries must be posted online or postmarked by the final deadline of February. Three to six medalists per category will be named in April.
Category info: (full list)
- 85 General Categories
- 11 Ebook Categories
- 12 Regional Categories
Price: $85-$95
Award Program Background:
The Independent Publisher Book Awards were conceived in 1996 as a broad-based, unaffiliated awards program open to all members of the independent publishing industry,and are open to independent authors and publishers worldwide who produce books intended for an English speaking audience. The awards are intended to bring increased recognition to the thousands of exemplary independent, university, and self-published titles published each year. Since the inaugural contest in 1996, over 5,000 books have received “IPPY“ Awards.
Prizes:
- Featured in a series of articles at IndependentPublisher.com which had 80,000+ unique visitors in the past year
- Inclusion in press releases sent to over 2,000 publishing industry media outlets
- Two passes, valued at $300, to the IPPY gala held during BookExpo America
- A Winner’s Celebration Packet with set of book seals, official winner’s certificate, and a medal.
Jewish Book Awards
Deadline: All books must be received by the end of September with a completed entry form. The winner are announced in January of the following year.
Category Info: American Jewish Studies, Anthologies and Collections, Autobiographies and Memoirs, Children’s Literature, Contemporary Jewish Life and Practice, Debut Fiction, Non-Fiction, Education, Poetry, Young Adult, Women Studies, Scholarship and Cookbooks
Price: $150
Award Program Background: Inaugurated in 1950, the National Jewish Book Awards is the longest running North American awards program of its kind and is recognized as the most prestigious. The Awards are intended to recognize authors, and encourage reading, of outstanding English language books of Jewish interest.
Prizes:
- to encourage the reading of meritorious books
- to recognize authors of outstanding Jewish literature
- to stimulate others to further literary creativity
- to acknowledge original contributions to scholarship
Lambda Literary Awards (Lammy Award)
Deadline: Submissions open around September and are open until November.
Category Info: Anthology, Children’s/Young Adult, Drama, Erotica, Graphic Novel, Nonfiction, Science Fiction/Fantasy/Horror, Studies, General Fiction, Memoir/Biography, Mystery, Poetry and Romance.
Price: $55
Award Program Background: For over 30 years, the Lambda Literary Awards (the “Lammys”) have identified and honored the best lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender books. The Lammys, which receive national and international media attention, bring together 600 attendees—including nominees, celebrities, sponsors, and publishing executives—to celebrate excellence in LGBTQ publishing. It is the most prestigious and glamorous LGBTQ literary event in the world.
Prizes:
- Lambda Literary’s Jeanne Córdova Prize for Lesbian/Queer Nonfiction honors lesbian/queer-identified women and trans/gender non-conforming nonfiction authors and includes a cash prize of $2,500.
- Judith A. Markowitz Award for Emerging LGBTQ Writers recognizes LGBTQ-identified writers whose work demonstrates their strong potential for promising careers and includes a cash prize of $1000.
- Visionary Award on individuals who have broken new ground in the field of LGBTQ literature and publishing.
- Trustee Award on individuals who have broken new ground in the field of LGBT literature, publishing, filmmaking, journalism, playwriting, etc
- Publishing Professional Award honors a distinguished individual in the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community whose innovative work in the publishing industry promotes and promulgates LGBTQ literature.
Living Now Book Awards
Deadline: Final entry deadline in late June. Three to five medalists per category will be named on or about the end of July.
Category info: (full list)
- 25 Living Now categories
- 5 Evergreen categories
Price: $75 per category
Award Program Background:
The Living Now Book Awards are designed to bring increased recognition to the year’s very best lifestyle books and their creators. This contest is for lifestyle, homestyle, personal development and wellness books published since January 1, 2000, and is open to authors, illustrators, and publishers worldwide of books written in English and intended for the North American market.
Prizes:
- Each medal-winning book receives a packet including the medal, a certificate, 20 foil award seals, an awards program and marketing material
- The winning books are promoted on IndependentPublisher.com and to national media
The Moonbeam Children’s Book Awards
Category Info: (click here for full list)
- 40 print categories
- 4 ebook categories
Price: $60 per entry
Award Program Background: Publishing services company Jenkins Group and IndependentPublisher.com created the Moonbeam contest in 2006 as a way to open up awards in children’s publishing to all types of publishers and genres. By developing a contest that would recognize winners in each of the nuanced categories of children’s publishing, IP hoped to bring attention to the under-sung children’s books and their creators who fell between the cracks in larger, more general contests.
Prizes:
- Each winning book receives a medal, a personalized certificate, and 20 sample seals.
- Medalists and their guests are invited to attend the awards ceremony and celebration at no charge.
Nautilus
Deadline: Entry season starts in late September and the deadline is usually in early February. The Award Winners will be notified by email in mid-April.
Category info: (full list)
- 35 General categories
- 8 categories for “Books for Children, Teens, Young Adults”
Price: Varies
Award Program Background:
Core mission is to celebrate and honor books that support conscious living & green values, high-level wellness, positive social change & social justice, and spiritual growth.
Prizes:
- $2,500 cash prize for Grand Winner
- Exhibit opportunities at national and international trade shows, including Book Expo America, American Library Association Annual, London Book Fair, Frankfurt Book Fair, Beijing Book Fair – and other book shows
- Announcements and online listings of winning titles for one year
- Lifetime listing in the Nautilus Library of Imagination & Possibility
- Image of preprinted Custom Metallic Nautilus Winners Seals to purchase and use on website / marketing materials / reprints of book
Next Generation Indie Book Awards
Deadline: Completed entry form, entry fees and books by no later than early February. Winners and Finalists will be announced and notified by approximately mid-May.
Category info: (full list)
- Over 80 categories to choose from
Price: Entry fee is $75 per title for the first category entered, and $60 for each additional category entered. For example, if you enter one book in one category, the total fee is $75. However, if you enter one book in three categories, the total fee is $195 ($75 for the first category plus $60 for the second category plus $60 for the third category).
Award Program Background:
The Next Generation Indie Book Awards is the largest International awards program for indie authors and independent publishers. In its thirteenth year of operation, the Next Generation Indie Book Awards was established to recognize and honor the most exceptional independently published books in over 70 different categories, for the year, and is presented by Independent Book Publishing Professionals Group (www.IBPPG.com ) in cooperation with Marilyn Allen of Allen O’Shea Literary Agency.
Prizes:
- Cash prizes
- All winners will be listed in the Next Generation Indie Book Awards Catalog which will be distributed to thousands of book buyers, media, and others
- Exposure for a full year as a winner or finalist at IndieBookAwards.com
- An invitation to attend the Gala Awards Reception held at a world-famous landmark location
- Five award stickers with more available for purchase
Readers’ Favorite Awards
Deadline: The final deadline is June 1. The winners are usually announced early September.
Category info: 10-30 subcategories in each of the below main categories
- Children
- Christian
- Fiction
- Non-Fiction
- Poetry
- Romance
- Young Adult
Price: $99 to $119
Award Program Background:
The contest is broken down into 140+ genres, and each genre is judged separately, ensuring books only compete against books in their specific genre for a fairer and more accurate competition. Submissions are received from independent authors, small publishers, and publishing giants such as Random House, HarperCollins and Simon & Schuster, with contestants that range from the first-time, self-published author to New York Times bestsellers like J.A. Jance, James Rollins, and #1 best-selling author Daniel Silva, as well as celebrity authors like Jim Carrey (Bruce Almighty), Jonathan Frakes (Star Trek) and Henry Winkler (Happy Days).
Prizes:
- Chance to win one of $100,000 in free prizes
- Chance to have your book made into a movie or TV show
- More features including a book review, award ceremony, and publicity
Sarton Women’s Book Awards
Deadline: The application completed, payment received, and books postmarked no later than November 15. Winners are typically announced in January of the following year.
Category info: Memoir; Nonfiction: Biography, Collective biography, Edited diaries, Scholarly studies of women’s literature, Anthologies; Contemporary Fiction; Historical Fiction.
Price: $90 to $110. (All entries include a one-year membership in the Story Circle Network).
Award Program Background:
The Sarton Women’s Book Awards™ are sponsored by the Story Circle Network, an international nonprofit association of women writers. The Story Circle Network is dedicated to helping women share the stories of their lives through memoir, poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and drama, and to raising public awareness of the importance of women’s personal histories. Our activities empower women to tell their stories, discover their identities through their stories, and choose to be the authors of their own lives.
Prizes:
- $100 cash award
- Crystal plaque and gold book seals; virtual seal for use
- Announcements on the Sarton website, press release, social media
- Free advertising for 1 year on SCN websites, eletters, print publications (value $600). 20% discount for advertising in the next national conference brochure
- Additional 1-year membership in Story Circle Network
- Interview in the SCN Journal, republished on StoryCircleBookReviews
- Invitation to participate in SCN’s biannual conference
- Finalists:
- Silver seals; additional seals may be purchased; virtual seal for use on finalist’s website
- Announcements on the Sarton website, press release, social media
- Free advertising for 1 year on SCN websites, eletters, print publications (value $600). 20% discount for advertising in the next national conference brochure
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