Often when I work with authors, one of the first things I will ask them is how many awards they’ve submitted their book to. It’s always surprising how many people have not done one thing in terms of trying to garner an award or two. What’s most surprising is that this is definitely a no-brainer! For the small amount of investment it takes for an author or a publisher to enter contests like the IPPY, Benjamin Franklin, The Ethan Awards, USABooknews.com or the Axiom Awards, it’s well worth doing so in the long run.
Even if your book garners only a finalist mention, that helps it stand out amongst a crowded field of books that don’t have any finalist mentions or any award wins. In bookstores when I shopped with my kids, I was always drawn to the children’s books with the bright shiny Newberry Award sticker on them. Why? Because I knew they had been vetted by an objective and savvy group of book enthusiasts and voted tops for kids.
The same holds true in terms of the awards I’ve listed above. The awards are serious business, and the people who run the contests make sure they have a stellar panel of folks reviewing and scoring each book as the “best” in its category.
And don’t forget there are many awards available through local community and regional clubs, for instance, the San Diego Book Awards. If you’re feeling that twinge of “poor me! my book isn’t in published form yet, so I can’t enter” — don’t be silly! You can enter for Best Unpublished Novel awards or Best Creative Non-Fiction awards, to get a good list of those you can simply keep abreast of the ones noted by Writer’s Digest and other leading writing magazines.
This is a good list too for creative book awards available – http://www.bookspot.com/awards/ .
I just had two clients garner nods in the USABookNews awards – Melody Chatelle was a finalist for her book, “Journeys of Heartache and Grace,” and Bill Scheft won Best Humor award for his book, “Everything Hurts.”
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