On the Self-Publishing with ALLi podcast, Campaigns Manager Matty Dalrymple interviews Hannah Jacobson about how indie authors can find and make the most of book awards. Their conversation covers everything from spotting red flags and budgeting for entry fees to using nominations and wins to boost visibility, strengthen a book’s metadata, and open doors to opportunities like BookBub Featured Deals. Jacobson, founder of Book Award Pro, also explains how awards can support authors at any stage of their publishing journey and offers practical tips on sharing award news without sounding self-promotional.
Listen to the Podcast: Find and Maximize Book Awards
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Read the Transcript
Matty Dalrymple: Welcome to today's event — Member Q&A: Winning Book Awards as an Indie Author. I am Matty Dalrymple, the campaigns manager for the Alliance of Independent Authors. I also wanted to mention that we have a whole bunch of resources about book awards in addition to Hannah. I'll be popping those in the chat. We have the awards ratings page — I'll put that in right now in case anyone would like to take a look. Our Watchdog Desk rates awards for us so that we can recommend the most reputable ones. Hannah also does a regular awards column for the ALLi blog that you can find at selfpublishingadvice.org. And we have a guide called Book Prizes and Awards for Indie Authors — a short guide in the member dashboard under Publications, Short Guides. As members you have access to all of that for free.
So I'm going to kick things off with a quick bio for Hannah. Hannah Jacobson is the founder of Book Award Pro, one of ALLi's partner members and the industry-trusted platform for getting reviews and awards. The company operates the world's largest database of legitimate book accolades, serving thousands of authors globally. Hannah is the recognized authority on literary accolades and prestigious book award recognition, and serves as an expert advisor for both ALLi and one of our organizational member partners, the Independent Book Publishers Association. We're going to be talking about all things book awards. Hannah, what made you so interested in paving the way for indie authors to understand and apply for book awards?
How Hannah Jacobson Got Started
Hannah Jacobson: Matty, that's a great question. And to everyone joining us, whether you're live or on the replay, thank you — I hope you submit your questions and get every single one of them answered. So you asked how I got started and what was the impetus. Actually just the other day I was talking to my mom. She said that even as a very young reader, before I started kindergarten, I would ask her for help finding the books with the gold coin on them. Awards as a reader have always guided me to my favorite books and favorite reading experiences. And somewhere along the way I had experience working through a university press, where I got experience in the professional side of book awards — getting the right books into the right awards at the right time.
I thought, that's really interesting — there was a method to go about that. But I looked and there was nothing in the industry that gave indie authors that kind of opportunity. So that was the idea behind Book Award Pro: to put the power into authors' hands, to actually know what is out there for your book, what's legitimate, what's a good fit, and to actually show you what you could do and how you can get those accolades.
Why Awards Matter and How to Find the Right Ones
Matty Dalrymple: It sounds as if the primary reason indie authors should be interested in awards is as a way of helping to spread the word about their work. We'll talk about what people should do once they get an award, but I wanted to dive first into the entry process. How should an indie author determine whether a particular award is worth it? How should they search to find the ones that are going to be best for them?
Hannah Jacobson: Awards specifically grow your credibility as an author — they grow that credibility for your author brand, but they also promote discoverability for your book. Awards are a way that readers can find your book in new and different ways. As for what the entry process looks like and how to figure out what's a good fit — that's exactly what Book Award Pro does. But if you're doing this independently, you would basically need to figure out what is a legitimate award, see what's actually safe, see what's out there for your book, and then see what's a really good fit.
You'll want to look at categories and award types — there are thousands and thousands of different kinds of awards out there. Sifting through and figuring out what's a good fit involves a lot of nuance. Then get down to the details: does your publication date match the requirements of this award? Is the entry fee within your budget? Is this an award you would actually like to enter? All of those things need to be taken into account.
Entry Fees: Not a Red Flag
Matty Dalrymple: I'm glad you mentioned entry fees, because early on when I was sorting through the opportunities and pitfalls of being an indie author there was always this warning: if people are asking you for money, you have to be cautious. But I think legitimate awards have a very good reason for asking authors to pay sometimes a little bit, sometimes a lot, to submit their books. Can you talk to that?
Hannah Jacobson: Professional awards cost money to operate. Even awards that don't have an entry fee still have some kind of membership or organization running behind them. So at the end of the day, an entry fee is not a bad thing. It's not a scary thing. It's part of the professional process — what it takes to keep an award running. A lot of times that entry fee goes toward raising the prize package, running a good website, hosting ads, or some kind of event that promotes your book to readers. There are lots and lots of ways that your entry fee is used beyond just the evaluation of your book.
Award entry fees can actually be a really good thing. The Pulitzer Prize asks for an entry fee — right now that's $75 USD, which is a pretty standard average. I actually queried our database right before this talk and the average entry fee right now is $89 USD. The truth is award entry fees are all over the place. There are awards that are completely free to enter, some that are maybe $20, and some that are upward of $500. But I would say there's nothing inherently bad or wrong with whatever the entry fee is. For higher prices, do your homework to see what you would be getting as an entrant and as a winner — what's the potential return on investment? And if it ever feels out of your budget, keep in mind there are thousands of other opportunities out there. You should never feel pressured to pursue one particular accolade.
Matty Dalrymple: I also wanted to mention — as someone who has been on the judging side of contests — that sometimes organizations charge a small entrance fee just so that one person doesn't submit a thousand entries. It's a way of metering the incoming flood.
Hannah Jacobson: That's a really cool point. There's a lot of professionalism involved in that, and there may be reasons they're charging an entry fee that you might not fully understand. We internally do inquire about what awards are doing with entry fees. But we also encourage authors: if you ever have questions, you can always get in touch with the award organization, and most of the time they're more than happy to tell you about the program and how it works.
Red Flags and Scams: What to Watch Out For
Matty Dalrymple: So fees should not be considered a red flag for scams — but what are some things people should be keeping an eye out for to pick out the bad players?
Hannah Jacobson: When we talk about the concept of scams, it's important to define what a scam is. At Book Award Pro, we define that as when an award organization is not fulfilling promises to authors. One example might be that you submit your book, pay your entry fee, get everything in — and then their website goes missing, they never announce winners, they just disappear. That can be a really scary thing to experience. I will say, we've been doing this for a very long time, and award scams are actually very, very rare to come across.
What are some of the red flags? Did the website go down — not just an occasional website issue, but has the award actually gone missing? Are they not announcing winners, not doing any work on behalf of authors? Another red flag: if the organization isn't responsive, or is very, very delayed in responding to requests. Also, if you see an award website and there are no winners posted and they're claiming it's the tenth annual award — where are the other winners? Where are all the announcements? Those are just a few litmus tests. Behind the scenes at Book Award Pro we have a huge series of ongoing tests we do to ensure complete legitimacy, and that's part of our job.
Matty Dalrymple: Even an organization that is completely on the up and up — if you're needing to budget your entry fees, a great way to prioritize is to see to what extent they promote the authors who have won in the past. If you're picking between two awards and one of them has had a lot of press around previous winners and one doesn't, that could be a way to narrow your choices.
Hannah Jacobson: Really figuring out what's the value for you and your book. When you're choosing between two different accolades with limited budgets, seeing what they're doing for winners matters. Ideally, they're promoting your book and you're promoting your book, and together that can really expand your discoverability.
Choosing Which Awards to Enter
Matty Dalrymple: If people have sorted through the bad ones and are looking at the good ones, what are some of the things they should prioritize? Genre-specific versus general? How important is it that the award has a well-known name?
Hannah Jacobson: One of my favorite myths is that you have to submit to a famous award for it to count — and that's absolutely not the case. In fact, there are some ALLi partner members who are award organizations that you may not have heard of yet. You should definitely go check them out on the ALLi Watchdog page. These organizations, even if you haven't heard of them, work very tirelessly to get the word out about your book — running Facebook ads, press releases, social posts on your behalf. These are things you don't have to pay extra for. They're things the award organization is doing.
When it comes to deciding exactly which award to submit to, this will depend on your goals and preferences. There's nothing wrong with pursuing genre-specific categories or genre-specific awards as a whole. For example, you could enter a children's book award in a nature category — but maybe you also apply to a best independent book award where one of their categories is children's books. Pursue those that resonate most with you, but consider how you can use those categories and award names in your marketing. Maybe your book has themes of nature and friendship, where you could pursue awards in children's books, nature, and friendship in combination. The variety of categories and awards out there is really astonishing.
Matty Dalrymple: And how about nonfiction books? A lot of the awards we hear about seem to be focused on fiction, but there must be a whole suite focused on nonfiction as well. That was a question we got from Sheila.
Hannah Jacobson: Thank you, Sheila. Yes, there are absolutely thousands of awards for nonfiction books as well. In popular culture we do tend to hear about awards that celebrate fiction, but there are awards for nonfiction, for children's books, for poetry — no matter what you write. It's not about whether there's anything out there. It's about what is out there for your specific book.
Timing: When in Your Book's Life Cycle Should You Submit?
Matty Dalrymple: Should authors try to coordinate submission for awards with a certain phase of their book's life cycle? If you're coming up to launch, is that the time? If it's three years later, have you lost your window?
Hannah Jacobson: In an ideal world — and we know publishing and life are not always ideal — it's never too late to submit to awards. If you're already published, it's not too late, especially if you're in your current publication year. And even if you published ten years ago, we've had authors sign up with books older than two decades and those books have won awards.
The sweet spot, the ideal scenario, is if you can swing it three months prior to publication. At that point your book really feels like a book — it's about 90% complete, you've got a professional cover design, your editing is mostly done, maybe a couple of nitpick things left, but it's ready to be seen by readers. That's the point where you can start submitting and see really good results. If you do that three months ahead of publication, it gives you time to find awards to submit to, time to navigate the process, and time to get results back. So by the time you launch, you can very well be an award-winning author with an award-winning book, and you can build that into your launch and your book marketing plan.
How Many Awards Should You Submit To?
Matty Dalrymple: When people are preparing submissions, are there guidelines for how many awards to submit to? Is there an understanding that you're not double-dipping across awards?
Hannah Jacobson: Always pay attention to your author goals, your preferences, and your budget. Some authors say they're proud of their book and want to go all in — they might submit to ten awards at a time. Others just want to test the waters and submit to one or two. The sweet spot we recommend at Book Award Pro is to plan about three to six months of submissions and submit once a month, every month.
What that does is balance your budget so you don't have to worry about all the entry fees upfront. It also has a nice side effect: you get to see a span of awards over time, since awards are opening and closing all the time. Over the course of three to six months you see a really good variety. And if you're submitting one or two a month, you're able to put your book forward, receive results, and actually measure your ROI — how much am I spending on awards, what am I getting back? You can steadily build that into your book marketing plan. Slow and steady. But of course, if you want to submit to five awards all upfront and see what you get, that's also a great plan.
Is There a Correlation Between Awards and Sales?
Matty Dalrymple: That leads nicely into a question from Karen: is there a correlation between awards and book sales?
Hannah Jacobson: I really wish I could share one solid statistic that says book awards automatically increase your book sales. I wish I could tell you that. But the truth is, the authors who have had the most success when it comes to awards and book sales are infusing their award-winning status — using their awards or their nomination status — in their book marketing. Along the way they're building a readership and discoverability for their book. You're growing networks every time you're sharing on social media, maybe in your newsletter. I don't have a single statistic that says if you win this award, you'll automatically get book sales. It's mostly about how you use the awards and what you're doing with them to grow your readership.
Awards for Standalone Books vs. Series
Matty Dalrymple: On the fiction side, if someone has written a standalone versus the first book of what they anticipate to be a series, or book six of a series — are there scenarios where the benefit of award submissions and wins is more obvious?
Hannah Jacobson: There are really cool award categories that exist out there — one is audiobooks, another is series awards for a series as a whole. When you write a series, you can use awards in a number of ways. When one of your books wins an award, it can bring attention to the rest of the series. You can also win awards for each individual book in the series and bring attention to each book. And you can win awards for the series as a whole — in which case you would be submitting all the books to the award organization to evaluate the entire series. There are so many different ways you can use awards in a series to bring additional marketability and discoverability. We've even had authors testing whether series awards or individual book awards get different traction with their audience depending on how they share that information.
Matty Dalrymple: Melissa is asking: are there actually awards for a series as a whole?
Hannah Jacobson: Yes, both — absolutely both. And you can pursue both kinds alongside each other. You can pursue awards for individual books and for the series as a whole, and you may be able to market your book in different ways by doing both.
How to Capitalize on Award Wins
Matty Dalrymple: I want to spend a good chunk of time on ways people should be capitalizing on wins. I'm speculating that one of the biggest mistakes people make is going to the trouble to submit, winning the award, and then not taking full advantage of it. We got a question from ALLi Ambassador Ena Santorelli: what's the best way to indicate an award-winning book to the reader? She asks about gold seals on the cover, mentions in the retailer sales copy, front matter, or other recommendations.
Hannah Jacobson: Putting an award seal on your book is really, really impactful. Something I love to do is go to a bookstore or library and pay attention to the award seals you see. A lot of those are trying to mimic the value of an award and they just don't come across the same as a nicely designed, genuine award seal. A real award seal is inherently attention-grabbing to a reader.
Consider putting an award seal on the spine of your book — that's a very rarely used option. Work with a professional cover designer to make it look really nice. The value is that when your book is on a shelf in a library or bookstore, your award seal is still seen. You can also use award-winning language in your author bio, in your book description, even as a byline on your book — ‘award-winning' or similar language, built in different ways into your material.
And really, really use awards in your social media and newsletters — anywhere you're engaging with real readers. Table displays too, especially for children's book authors, who tell us they have huge success putting medallions and award-winning stickers on their display materials. Those are enticing to young readers and to parents looking for quality books for their children. Share your award news every step of the way with your readers and build that community. Readers want to know. The things you're doing on a day-to-day basis may not feel magical to you, but they feel meaningful to your readers.
Matty Dalrymple: If someone wants to share that on social media, do you have tips for how they can do that in a way that doesn't sound obnoxious?
Hannah Jacobson: I don't personally like being a walking billboard, though it does work very effectively for some authors. Use the right tools, the right language and words for you and your book brand. From the moment you enter an award, you have an outstanding award nomination — and it's important to share that exciting news with your audience. It builds anticipation and credibility that you're doing things a professional author does. It's genuinely interesting news for your readers.
Keep the language light, airy, and authentic. For example, if you submit your book to an award, take a picture and share something simple: ‘I just submitted my book to the North Street Book Prize today — I'm really excited to be considered for this category and I'll keep you involved in the process.' Tell your audience a story. Tell them why you're excited, why this particular award excites you. Does it make you feel like you've leveled up in your author career? Does it support a charity you want to support? Make it specific to your book.
Physical Seals: Stickers vs. Incorporating into Cover Design
Matty Dalrymple: Donna is asking: for print books, there are two ways you could accommodate having the seal on the book. One would be to have a separate physical sticker and adhere it to books you're selling at in-person events. Another would be to redo the cover design to actually incorporate the seal as part of the design. Pros and cons? Are either legitimate?
Hannah Jacobson: I've heard from book cover designers that incorporating an award seal tends to be a relatively inexpensive adjustment to make to your cover. Consider working with a professional cover designer to just put it into the design — then every time your book is sold, it will still have the award seal on it. I actually spoke with an author who was supplying books to Amazon but was adhering physical stickers to each individual book. Not only was it very time consuming, it stressed her out to make sure every sticker was placed nicely. She said it would have been easier to just design it into the cover.
That said, there is value in physical stickers. Say you incorporate your favorite award seal into your cover design, but later you win another award — those physical stickers give you something fun to do with the newer win. You could do a special giveaway with a book that you signed and put the award seal on. Dale Roberts, who is a fellow advisor at ALLi, sent me a book with the award seal adhered, and I'm going to keep that forever because as a reader it felt special — there's something really tactile and meaningful about it. Children's book authors especially have great success with giveaways using signed, award-sealed books.
Honorable Mentions: Can You Call Yourself Award-Winning?
Matty Dalrymple: Sherry is asking: she's had eight major finalist or honorable mention placements in awards. Is it fair to call herself an award-winning author if she didn't get the top prize? And how can she make the best use of those kinds of honorable mentions?
Hannah Jacobson: That's a misunderstanding a lot of authors have. When you are an honorable mention, you still received an award-winning designation from that award. Unless they specifically ask you not to share it — which is extremely, extremely rare — you should call yourself an award-winning author. However you decide to share that, whether you're a gold medalist, silver medalist, or honorable mention, is up to you and your author brand. If you feel uncomfortable, you can always ask the award organization to clarify. But 99% of the time you should be calling yourself an award-winning author. You did rightfully receive that designation — congratulations, because that's huge.
Awards on Retail Platforms and Metadata
Matty Dalrymple: Marsha is noting that Amazon is no longer letting authors put awards in their keywords. Do you have advice about limitations on major retail platforms regarding mentions in keywords or book descriptions?
Hannah Jacobson: Marsha, if you don't mind, after this I would love a follow-up from you to hear about your experience, because we're not seeing that with our authors. Book awards are really important for your metadata — that includes Amazon, Barnes and Noble, NetGalley, all kinds of different places where your book may be listed. Specifically for Amazon, there's a section called Amazon A+ Content, and awards belong in there. Award seals and award information should be included. When you fill out that information, Amazon perceives that as a more professional book listing — one they're more proud to show potential buyers — so your book is more likely to be seen. I hope you're able to get that resolved, Marsha.
Matty Dalrymple: Marsha is also saying she had a negative experience with an award that is on the recommended ALLi list. For anyone who has that kind of situation and wants to share your experience with ALLi, I would point you to [email protected]. That kind of input is always very useful for us to get.
Beyond Sales: Other Ways to Capitalize on Award Wins
Matty Dalrymple: How about things like eligibility for feature deals, getting into libraries, other ways that people can capitalize on wins in those areas?
Hannah Jacobson: I love this question. Awards and reviews — BookBub loves to see that you're putting your book out there and getting results and that your book is being discovered in other places. Those are the kinds of books BookBub wants to do feature deals with. Awards are really important for translation rights as well — especially in the ALLi sphere where we have a lot of international authors selling books in many places. If you're pursuing translation rights, awards are really important in securing those. Distribution too — awards are hugely important there. Different entities looking at your book listing are looking for accolades, reviews, because they position your book as a professional, marketable book.
And beyond metadata: we see a lot of authors use their award wins to level up professionally. Award-winning authors are more likely to secure speaking engagements based on their speaker bio. I actually heard from two different authors who ran a test for themselves — one found that podcast hosts were more likely to select their listing when their bio included ‘award-winning author.' Another mentioned that when she was doing a tour of different television stations, they told her that her being an award-winning author helped them pick her. To hear that from news outlets, podcast hosts, and conference organizers is really validating. As a reader that resonates with me, but to hear it from those platforms confirms that the signal is real.
Geographic and Niche Awards
Matty Dalrymple: We got a question from Kara about geographic considerations. She asks: are there any UK-only awards? She feels lost in a global or US competition.
Hannah Jacobson: Awards tend to be very global, but there are also lots of awards that are regionally specific. Finding those on your own can be really tricky and time-consuming. If you have a Book Award Pro account, you can update your author regions and you'll automatically be shown awards specific to you — if you're in the UK, for example, what awards are UK-based and you'd be eligible for.
Matty Dalrymple: There's also the question of not just where the author is from but where the book is set. I'm aware of awards specifically for books set on the New Jersey Shore, for example. So look at both of those geographic considerations.
Hannah Jacobson: And some of my favorite niche awards: in the UK there's an award given for the best canine character in a book. And if you're in the US, there's an award for the best feline in a book. To tell your readers that the kitty character in your book won an actual award — there are so many different ways to market that and share it with your readers. I've actually bought a couple of books from reading award pages. There's real discovery happening there.
Matty Dalrymple: You can have lots of fun on social media with that — like, your cat goes on a press tour, your cat gets a social media account, what have you.
What to Do If You Don't Win
Matty Dalrymple: We got a question from Faye: what can we do to offset the cost of entering awards we don't win? Are there ways to make it less than a complete loss?
Hannah Jacobson: Having a book means running your own business, and you have to be thinking about those things. Do keep in mind: when you enter your book, you are an award nominee. Share that news with your readers. You don't have to be a walking billboard to do that — you're simply keeping your readers in the know and telling them a story about where you're at in your author career. Use every step of the awards process to gain traction with your readers.
And as Matty mentioned, some awards provide feedback from judges, which is genuinely valuable editorial input even if you don't win. The North Street Book Prize, for example, actually has judges provide input to entrants whether they win or not. That's worth the price of admission even if you never place — essentially very inexpensive feedback from someone who is an expert in your genre.
Managing Multiple Awards: How Many Seals Is Too Many?
Matty Dalrymple: Donna asks: if you're knocking it out of the park and have several awards, how many seals is too many on a book cover? And more broadly, if you've won several awards, do you prioritize the most recognizable one?
Hannah Jacobson: For digital communications, you don't have to limit yourself — spread the news out over time. And it's never too late to bring back an old award win. For book cover design, there are no current industry standards on exactly how to do it. I will say that choosing your top one or two award seals — possibly three — can be really eye-catching without cluttering your cover. You could also infuse award-winning language on your cover and choose your very favorite seal.
There's a book that surprised me recently — a Caldecott winner that had won five or six awards and all of those awards were on the book cover. It looked awesome and it played really well with the cover design. There are no exact rules. Work with your cover designer and do what's right for you. If you have two favorite seals, go for it.
Sherry mentions you could have an interior page that lists all your awards. Yvonne says to add awards to your author bio — and to the back cover as well as the front cover. All great suggestions.
Book Award Pro and Closing
Matty Dalrymple: Hannah, we only have a couple of minutes, but I want to give you an opportunity to talk a little bit about Book Award Pro, which is an ALLi partner member.
Hannah Jacobson: Thank you everyone for coming — whether you're watching on the replay or here live. Book Award Pro is the world's largest database of legitimate book accolades. Right now we're monitoring more than 11,000 awards, and we specialize in matching your book to the perfect awards and reviews. If you ever have questions, you can find us at bookawardpro.com, email us at [email protected], and find us on social at Book Award Pro. And of course my work here at ALLi — always love being here. Ask us questions, ask the Watchdog questions. We look into everything and want to keep doing great things for indie authors. Thank you for being here.
Matty Dalrymple: Thank you, and I know you're also graciously active on SelfPubConnect, so if anyone has a question we didn't get to or thinks of one right after we end, pop it in there and we'll point Hannah to it. A quick reminder that in addition to the awards ratings page and Hannah's regular awards column on the ALLi blog, you can also get our short guide — Book Prizes and Awards for Indie Authors — in the member dashboard under Publications and Short Guides. Thank you again, Hannah. It's always a pleasure to talk to you, and thank you to everyone who came and asked such great questions. We'll see everybody on SelfPubConnect.
Hannah Jacobson: Bye. Thank you. Bye.
