Making the most of book awards even when you don’t win

May 21

I haven’t won an award…yet. But I’ve gotten close, and I still have hope for awards that are in process. If I’m being realistic, I probably won’t hear anything about the undecided awards until I see winners announced on social media. Because that’s how I’ve been finding out – on social media.

Illustration of a woman wearing glasses and in purple imagining Heidi Across America as a winner (with yellow and red stars). On the wall is a paper with a pie shape that says Astrology across the top and wow! underneath the pie

Having my debut book published filled me with pride and excitement, and I knew it would take me places. I could also see, as a student of astrology, that publishing a book at this time in my life was HUGE. This was my rocket to stardom! Yes, I exaggerate, but I was confident I’d created an award-winning book during optimal conditions for visibility. Simply publishing a book created new/more visibility for me. The astrologer in me thought the visibility would be bigger, and I’ve had to coach myself that my current experience might be BIG (I am grateful that I didn’t crash and burn).

If you’ve won an award, you will receive an email
(or your publisher will).

As debut authors, we hitch our hopes for personal validation to publication of our first book. Somehow, it’s not enough to have our work out in the world. We need some awarding entity to recognize us.

Part of the story in my book is that the external recognition we long for actually comes from within. If I feel the need for some congrats, I ought to break out my collage materials and make my own award. I may do that, but first I offer some considerations when it comes to awards.

Yes, apply for one or more awards.

Just be clear-eyed about what you’re doing. I appreciated Kate Raphael’s humorous take on the pros and cons of awards, “So you won a prize. What do you want, a medal?” For a sobering look, Victoria Strauss of Writer Beware warns about scam awards and festivals. These scams, she cautions, “are a cynical play on authors’ hunger for recognition and exposure in an increasingly crowded marketplace.” Clarify your goals for your book before you get lost in the book awards Hall of Shiny Objects. If, for example, your main goal is to win an award so you can say you’re an award-winning author, that’s a different strategy than reaching a new audience of readers.

Every award has some cost associated with it.

Most awards require an entry fee per category. Most awards require multiple paper copies of the book. Do the math: entry fee + cost of books + shipping (use media mail with USPS). Assess the value of what you get for your entry and the likelihood of success. Applying for ten awards, say, is easily a thousand-dollar investment and may get you nothing.

My publisher agreed to pay for one award on my behalf and any others were on me. That sent me to the Internet for help because I didn’t know anything about awards. Some awards will only take publisher-nominated books. Other awards will accept author-nominated books but will notify the publisher. Other awards only care that the book is available. The Alliance of Independent Authors Book Awards & Contest Ratings page is enormously helpful in assessing reputable awards.

The Authors Guild also has resources to support writers in identifying and/or avoiding scams.

I applied for geographic and topic awards, but I didn’t go deep researching award opportunities. I asked the following questions to generate a list of awards:

Had any of my comp titles or other books I’d read that were like mine won awards, and was I eligible for them?
Did any of my published friends who’d won awards have recommendations?
Did any writer or reader friends have thoughts on what awards I might consider?

I applied to awards that felt like the best fit with my goals to sell books and get in front of likely readers. My goal was not necessarily to win a cash prize (although I wouldn’t turn it down if it was included in the winnings) but to grow my audience and the number of people (or forums) talking about my book.

Be prepared for stiff competition.

You never know who is going to come out with a book the same “year” as yours. As I looked at recent awardees for my state and region, I was comforted that Timothy Egan and Naomi Klein were on the list of winners and wouldn’t likely be coming out with another book a year after they received awards. Still, you don’t know, and you don’t know if you’ll be competing in the same award pool as established authors. Will I be competing with Rick Steves? I just looked up On the Hippie Trail and saw it published February 4, 2025. Heidi Across America published April 30, 2024, so at least for the Washington State Book Awards, which uses a Jan 1 to Dec 31 publication date, we’re not in the same pool. What a relief. I didn’t apply for the Pacific Northwest Book Award, which uses October 1 – September 30 for their calendar year, but even if I had, I still wouldn’t be competing with Rick Steves.

2024 Washington State Book Award Winners: Meet Me Tonight in Atlantic City, The Laughter, A Fever in the Heartland, I Sing the Salmon Home, Ploof, Duel, Painted Devils

Timothy Egan’s A Fever in the Heartland published April 4, 2023 and won the 2024 WA Book Award for general nonfiction Naomi Klein’s Doppelganger published September 12, 2023 and won a 2024 Pacific Northwest Book Award

2024 Pacific Northwest Book Award Winners: Weird Rules to Follow, Meet Me Tonight in Atlantic City, Legends & Lattes, The Lost Journal of Sacajawea, You Just Need to Lose Weight, Wolfish, Cascadia Field Guide, Doppelgänger, Enter the Body

Awards are one means of advertising and promoting your book.

Awards are not a direct advertisement because you have no control over the awarding entity’s willingness to use their platform to talk about your book. That said, you can tag or call out the awarding entity in your promotional materials, and they might reshare your post. Gratitude does generate good will in the world, but it doesn’t necessarily sway an awarding entity. I liked that award judges were at least reading my book (big assumption on my part) and that I could touch readers who otherwise might never hear about my book. And even if my book didn’t win, maybe those judges would tell at least one other person about my book (I’m assuming good things because my book is great!).

Yes! This happened. One of the readers of Heidi Across America for the High Plains International Book Award encouraged This House of Books in Billings, Montana, to carry my book. They did, and a man who was moving from Pennsylvania to Washington state discovered it. The book so moved him that he reached out to me on social media, and we met!

Awards can give you credibility, and some awards impress readers.

If you win an award or are a finalist, add the award logo to your website, one-pager, and Amazon book page. Use your award status as content for multiple social media posts and in emails to your fans. Seattle Bike Blog’s Tom Fucoloro wrote a blog post congratulating the 2024 WA Book Award winners (remember: Timothy Egan’s A Fever in the Heartland) and still plugged the fact that his book, Biking Uphill in the Rain, was a 2024 WA Book Award Finalist. Go Tom! For anyone who really wants to claim being a National Book Award nominee, have your publisher nominate you for $135. Some readers and other people looking at your bio might be impressed by that, and that might help you sell books and/or make money.

For one of my book events at a conference, I curated a collection of titles that related to the conference theme. Four of the five titles I had for sale, including my own, had received at least finalist recognition. I made a little table tent with the award name, its logo, and the year these books placed as finalists or winners. I don’t know if these table tents affected buyers’ decisions because no one mentioned the awards, but the one book without a table tent sold least well of the five (it has since won an award!).

A table displayed with Heidi Across America, Ground Truth, Wilderness and the American Spirit, and Trust Me — The Oregon Outdoor Recreation Summit provided a table for authors and publishers. *Heidi Across America*, published by HCI Books; *Ground Truth*, *Wilderness and the American Spirit*, andVolcanoes, Palm Trees and Privilege, published by Overcup Press; *Trust Me*, published by Forest Avenue Press; Microcosm Publishing.

Heidi Across America hasn’t won an award yet, but it was recognized by the Chanticleer International Book Awards as a 2024 Finalist in the Journey category. I’m not sure that my participation in the Chanticleer competition has helped people find my book, but I engaged with other writers I was competing with. I established a relationship with one of them that created an avenue to meet potential readers and collaborators I would not have otherwise met. So, yes, it did help people find my book. I celebrate the winners and the almost winners because we all deserve congratulations. Each of us who has written and published a book has struggled with something and overcome it to even be eligible for a book award. I celebrate that effort!