{"id":25384,"date":"2016-09-29T00:01:21","date_gmt":"2016-09-29T07:01:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/barbarafalconernewhall.com\/?p=25384"},"modified":"2016-09-29T00:01:21","modified_gmt":"2016-09-29T07:01:21","slug":"book-awards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/book-awards\/","title":{"rendered":"Book Awards — My Big Starter List for Authors"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Book<\/a>
Book Awards. California IPPY winners met at a ceremony in Chicago in 2016: Veda Stamps (“Flexible Wings”), Barbara Falconer Newhall (“Wrestling with God”), Laura A. Ackley (“San Francisco’s Jewel City”), Aleta George (“Ina Coolbrith”). Photo by Jon Newhall<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Want to win some book awards? If you’re famous and your book is hitting the best-seller lists and it has the support of one of the Big Five publishers, you probably don’t have to lift a finger. But if you are among the legions of self-published authors and authors published by small, independent presses — you’ll need a list of book contests so you can get cracking. Contest deadlines for books tend to start in the fall and continue on through early the next year.<\/p>\n

Some contests will even let you enter a book published in a previous year. So don’t despair if you are just now finally getting around to thinking about contests.<\/p>\n

I submitted my book, “Wrestling with God,” to a dozen or so contests, most of them contests for indie books. The effort and cost paid off: My book won a first prize in one contest and was a finalist in three others.<\/p>\n

Most of these contests cost money — anywhere from $25 to a couple hundred dollars. You can spend hundreds entering these contests!<\/p>\n

For me, the\u00a0most wrenching aspect\u00a0of the submission process was simply locating the contests to enter.\u00a0I could not find a comprehensive list of contests anywhere. As a result I\u00a0spent a lot of time hunting all over the place.\u00a0Sadly, even then I missed entering some important contests.<\/p>\n

Sooooo, to help you out, here’s\u00a0a — very rough — starter list. These are contests\u00a0that\u00a0I know about (but don’t necessarily endorse). You can go on line for contest details,<\/p>\n

\"Book<\/a>
Book contests. IPPY winners celebrate atop Chicago’s\u00a0Willis Tower. Photo by Barbara Newhall<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

that’s easy. It’s knowing that there even is\u00a0such a contest out there that is the challenge. Especially if you don’t have a big publishing house\u00a0publicity department to help you\u00a0out.<\/p>\n

My list includes religion book contests, since “Wrestling with God” is a religion and spirituality book. You\u00a0can hunt around for contests that apply for your\u00a0topic or region.<\/p>\n

To flesh out your list, go to Poets and Writers magazine. It’s the best single source I know for announcements of\u00a0deadlines for awards, contests, residencies and\u00a0conferences. Also, recently I’ve discovered\u00a0a couple of websites<\/a> with their own lists. Some are mostly for self-published <\/a>authors.<\/p>\n

When you go to the various contests’ websites,\u00a0take note of\u00a0the winners’ publishers. Some awards seem to go mostly to books published by\u00a0the Big Five. Some, on the other hand, won’t consider\u00a0books published by those publishers.<\/p>\n

Some contests don’t permit ebooks and\/or PODs. Some don’t let authors or publishers submit; the book has to be nominated. Some let you enter a book published more than a year ago. Some require getting reviewed in their trade mag first. Some are downright tacky; I didn’t enter those. So, check out all these contests, their past winners and their rules carefully before submitting.<\/p>\n

And don’t forget — there are contests for book cover design. I’ve listed a couple below.<\/p>\n

Here’s my rough list of book contests (titles not exact). Additions and corrections heartily welcomed.<\/p>\n

General Book Contests<\/strong><\/h5>\n

American Book Awards – Before Columbus<\/p>\n

Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction<\/p>\n

Books for a Better Life – MS Society<\/p>\n

Chautauqua Prize (residency)<\/p>\n

Christopher Awards (inspirational)<\/p>\n

Cleveland Foundation<\/p>\n

Community of Literary Magazines & Presses Firecracker Awards (indie presses)<\/p>\n

Dayton Literary Peace Prize<\/p>\n

Devil’s Kitchen – Southern Illinois University<\/p>\n

Eric Hoffer Awards<\/a><\/p>\n

Foreword Reviews IndieFab<\/p>\n

Friends of American Writers Chicago (Midwestern writers and topics)<\/p>\n

Independent Book Publishers Association – Benjamin Franklin<\/p>\n

Independent Publishers Book Award – IPPY<\/a><\/p>\n

Indie Excellence Awards<\/p>\n

International Book Awards<\/a><\/p>\n

Jane Underwood Poetry Prize<\/a><\/p>\n

Kirkus Prize (get your book reviewed early<\/em> to qualify)<\/p>\n

The Lukas Book Prize (journalism)<\/p>\n

Nancy Pear Book Award (Pacific Northwest)<\/p>\n

Nautilus Book Awards<\/p>\n

Next Generation Indie Book Awards<\/p>\n

Rona Jaffe Foundation<\/p>\n

The San Francisco Foundation<\/p>\n

Stanford Saroyan Prize<\/p>\n

USA Best Book Awards<\/p>\n

Women’s National Book Association<\/a><\/p>\n

California and Western Book Contests<\/strong><\/h5>\n

California Book Awards – Commonwealth Club<\/p>\n

Northern California Book Awards – Northern California Book Reviewers<\/p>\n

Northern California Independent Bookstores Association<\/p>\n

Spur Award (western)<\/p>\n

Religion – Spirituality – Inspiration Awards<\/strong><\/h5>\n

The Independent Spiritual Book Awards<\/p>\n

Lilly<\/p>\n

Religion News Association<\/p>\n

Wilbur Awards<\/p>\n

Book Awards for Cover Design<\/strong><\/h5>\n

AIGA – 50 books 50 covers (My book’s cover appears on this site — even though it was only “nominated” and not a winner.)<\/p>\n

Print Magazine Regional Design Awards<\/p>\n

These Are Biggies. But We\u00a0Can Dream<\/strong><\/h5>\n

Booklist Editors Choice<\/p>\n

LA Times Book Prize<\/p>\n

Man Booker Prize<\/p>\n

National Book Award<\/p>\n

National Book Critics Circle Award<\/p>\n

Notable Books, American Library Association<\/p>\n

PEN Oakland<\/p>\n

PEN Center USA<\/p>\n

Pulitzer Prize<\/p>\n

Pushcart<\/p>\n

More stories for writers at “Write Another Book? I Dunno.”<\/a>\u00a0 Also,\u00a0“Splitting the Infinitive — How to Boldly Go There.”<\/a>\u00a0 And, “What’s Rhetoric? Let My Two-Year-Old Enlighten You.”<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

\"Book<\/a>
An IPPY gold medal.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"Book<\/a><\/p>\n

Want to win some book contests? If you’re self-published or an author published by a small, independent press — here’s a starter list of contests to enter. Read more.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25401,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50,52],"tags":[1686,1789,1512,134,1690,488,53,69],"class_list":["post-25384","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-on-writing-reading","category-the-writing-room","tag-book-awards","tag-book-contests","tag-book-promotion","tag-books","tag-ippy","tag-the-writing-life","tag-wrestling-with-god","tag-writing-tips"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25384","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25384"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25384\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25384"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25384"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25384"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}