What can be submitted to the contest?
We accept manuscripts, published and unpublished books, eBooks, audiobooks, poetry books, comic books, graphic novels, and short stories. Your work must be complete, written in English, and fit into one of our 150+ genre categories. Currently we do not accept erotica books that contain primarily sex with no substantial plot. Your book does not have to be on Amazon and we do not have a minimum or maximum word count restriction. Your book does not have to be published, and if it is published we do not have a publication date requirement. We are an international competition and accept submissions from all over the world.
How do I submit my book to the contest?
You can submit your book to us in the following formats in order of preference: PDF, Kindle (MOBI), Microsoft Word (DOC, DOCX), RTF, and ePUB. If you have a different file format like Open Office or Word Perfect, or you have any trouble attaching your book to our Contest Entry form, just complete the form without attaching your book and your confirmation email will have instructions on how to easily send us your book file. Because we have thousands of contestants, judges and reviewers worldwide, we cannot take physical books because it would be too hard to manage. We also cannot take a Kindle copy direct from Amazon because they are coded to one reader and we need several people to have access to the book.
How do I update my book for the contest?
Once you have entered the contest you will have a new Contest page in your
Author Area that will display our first Contest Update, as well as all of the information you have submitted with your contest entry, including your book file and category(s). You can update any of this information in real time at your convenience.
How to enter an audiobook
We currently have 3 categories for audiobooks: Children - Audiobook, Fiction - Audiobook and Non-Fiction - Audiobook. The audiobook categories cannot be added on to a regular book contest entry, the audiobook must be entered in the contest separately because they are very different from the regular book version and need their own review and contest score. To submit your audiobook using our Contest Entry form, you will need to create a one-page document explaining how to get a free copy of your audiobook. You can provide a download link from a free file-sharing site like DropBox or you can provide Audible free download codes and instructions on how to use them. When you complete our form, you will upload that document as your book file. In the Book Description box on our form, include this statement as your first line: “This is an audiobook, the instructions to download your free copy are in the attached file.” If you are using Audible you will need to include 2 free download codes: one for your judge and one for your reviewer.
How to enter a sequel
If you are entering a sequel that is not standalone, where you need the reader to have some information from the previous book(s), then please add a short synopsis of your previous book(s) to the beginning of the Book Description field of our Contest Entry form. If that is not enough room, go ahead and enter your book in the contest. Then write up a synopsis of a few paragraphs to a few pages and send it to us via our Contact Us page and we will attach it to your entry for you.
Contest deadlines, updates and results
Due to the high volume of entries in our book award contest, we have created 3 deadlines to try and motivate authors to get their books in early: Early Bird deadline - April 1 ($99), Regular Deadline - May 1 ($109), Final Deadline - June 1 ($119). Our judges are hard at work reading and scoring books year round, so the sooner an author can submit their book, the less expensive it will be and the quicker they will receive their complementary review.
Once entered in the contest, the author can login to their Author Area and visit their Contest page to update any of the information they submitted to the contest, including their book file and category(s). The page also has our contest updates to inform the author on what to expect from the contest. We do not send email updates as they are too unreliable. Instead, we ask all authors to visit their Contest page when they enter the contest, and then again on September 1st when the contest results are announced so they can see how they did. If the author provides their phone number (which can be done on their Contest page) we will send them a reminder text on September 1st.
If you entered multiple books in the contest, you will need to check the Contest page for each one. Login to your Author Area and select the title of your book from the Book Title drop-down, then click the Contest tab to see the results for that book.
How do I find out how I did in the contest?
Contest results are released on September 1st and are now available. To see how you did and to find answers to all your contest-related questions, please visit the Contest page in your
Author Area. If you have multiple books in the contest you will need to select the book from the Book Title drop-down at the top of your Author Area and then click the Contest tab to see the results for that book.
View ALL of this year's contest winners
All of the award winners of this year's International Book Award Contest, including the prize winners and those selected by Wind Dancer Films, Headline Books, Allen Media Strategies, and Folio Literary Management can be seen on our Award Winners page. You can see the link to our Award Winners page directly below the search bar at the very top of our website. Please do not visit the Award Winners page to try and find out how you did in the contest. Instead, visit the Contest page in your
Author Area for specific details regarding your book.
I do not see the genre I entered on the Award Winners page
All books are given a score, and if no books in a particular genre scored high enough to place in the contest then that genre will not be displayed. However, this does not mean that no books in that genre were good enough to place in the contest. Because authors are allowed to enter their book in multiple genres, books that won in the missing genres also won in other genres, and it was in those other genres that the award was given. This leaves the missing genres with books that did not quite score high enough to place, and therefore the genres are not displayed. This happens with several genres each year, generally those with a lower number of contestants.
Some award levels seem to be missing from the genre I entered
We offer up to 5 award levels in each category: Gold, Silver, Bronze, Honorable Mention and Award Finalist. However, not all levels are awarded in each category despite the record number of entries in this year's contest. That is because each book is given a score which corresponds to a particular award level. No attention is given to the number of entrants, only the quality of the book being judged. In some cases, the same award is given more than once in the same category, which is a result of more than one book receiving the same judging score.
I placed in the contest, but my cover is not on the Award Winners page
Your book cover will appear once we have created a Review Page for you on our site. To do that, we must have completed your review and your book must be currently for sale on Amazon. Please visit the Book Information page in your
Author Area for specific details on what we need for your book. Once that is done, your listing on the Award Winners page will be automatically updated.
I haven’t received my review yet
Each contestant is given a review of their book as a free feature of entering our book award contest, if we have not already reviewed your book. It is important to understand that a Readers' Favorite review has no impact on our contest, it is just a perk for participating in the contest. A reviewer is an avid reader who reads your book and provides you with their honest opinion in the form of a review. A judge is a literary professional who reads and scores your book for the contest. They are two very different people doing two very different things.
It takes much longer to complete reviews than it does to complete judging because judges read with a purpose, while reviewers are volunteers who read for enjoyment. Contest reviews are given top priority by our reviewers. If we have not completed your review yet, we thank you for your patience and we will email you as soon as your complementary review is complete.
2022 Awards Ceremony
After not having our annual Awards Ceremony event for 2 years because of COVID restrictions, we are excited to be heading back to Miami to celebrate with all our award-winning authors from our 2020, 2021 and 2022 award contests! If you have placed in any of those contest years and would like to attend our Awards Ceremony weekend this November, please login to your Author Area and click the red Contest tab, there you will find a link to your Contestant's Page with all the information regarding your award, including information about the Awards Ceremony and how to RSVP.