How many books awards are there?
Book Award Pro
Many authors are surprised to learn just how many book awards exist for them to pursue. When thinking of book awards, well-known, prestigious awards often come to mind, such as the National Book Award. While there are a sizable number of these famous awards out there, there are many other valuable award opportunities in today’s landscape.
Read on to learn how many book awards there are, the different types of awards available, and how to find the best awards for your book in the seemingly endless sea of opportunities.
How many book awards are there?
Quantifying the exact number of possible book awards around the globe is difficult to do. However, Book Award Pro operates the largest database of legitimate book reviews and awards in the world, and we monitor over 10,000 different accolades. Not to mention, that staggering number keeps growing by the day!
There are many thousands of book award opportunities waiting to bring your book into the spotlight.
Does the size of the award matter?
At Book Award Pro, we believe any professional recognition your book receives is a big win. When talking about the value awards bring to your book, it’s important to note that every accolade, from Pulitzer Prize to a local book award contest, can help you establish yourself as an esteemed author, expand your audience, and even sell more books.
To the average reader, a shiny award sticker on your book cover is an impressive nudge to buy your book. To established industry experts, even lesser-known legitimate book awards are signifiers of your book’s quality and your drive to succeed as an author.
There are some genres, like academic works, where the notability of an award carries more weight. But for the most part, awards of all kinds are equally valuable for your book.
What are the types of book awards?
There are two main types of accolades: awards for the actual content of your book (like literary fiction, or memoir, or spy mystery), and awards beyond your book's content (like cover art, or editing, or illustrations, or audiobook). Between the two, there are countless opportunities to win:
Content awards
Most book awards recognize the quality of your book’s content. Judges often consider things like storyline, character development, imagery, and originality, among other metrics. However, these considerations may vary depending on the genre of your book.
For each genre, there are hundreds of book awards to be won. Here are some examples of common content-based awards:
- Best Children’s Book
- Best Science Fiction Short Story
- Best Memoir or Autobiography
- Best Poetry Collection
- Best Nonfiction
- Best Young Adult Novel
- Best Thriller
- Best Historical Fiction
- Best Historical Nonfiction
- Best Romance
- Best Paranormal/Supernatural
As you can see, there are book awards for just about every genre/category imaginable. And this list barely scratches the surface!
We’ve seen awards for genres as unique as morbid children’s books to paranormal romance novels. If your book belongs to two genres (thriller and mystery, for example) your award landscape becomes even bigger.
Special awards
At Book Award Pro, we call accolades for anything other than your book’s content special awards, and we even have a feature that can match your book to these additional ways to become an award winner. Below are just a few examples of award titles that celebrate the additional qualities of your book:
- Best Cover Art: Whether your cover design is original or completed by an illustrator or graphic artist, you can submit to contests that focus on your book’s cover art.
- Best Debut Author: This is great for new authors. If you’ve recently published your first book or are in the process of doing so, debut author awards are available to celebrate your success as an up-and-coming author.
- Best Audiobook: Technology has changed how we consume media, and many award contests have updated their award categories to follow suit. For authors who turned their work into an audiobook, awards exist specifically for this modern medium.
- Best Editing: Quality editing can help bring your story to life, polish your ideas, and elevate your book to its highest potential. Editing awards are yet another opportunity to win distinction as a notable author.
If you only seek out content-based awards, you’ll still have a plethora of opportunities to win for your genre. But, if you combine special awards with awards for content, the number of accolades for which your book is eligible grows dramatically.
How do you find book awards?
Book Award Pro operates the world's largest database of legitimate reviews and awards. We’re here to make the process of finding, entering, and winning accolades surprisingly simple.
