Awards for authors: Secrets from a book award judge
Book Award Pro
Awards for authors: will your book win an award? Let me share some secrets and not-so-secret tips so your book catches the attention of the judges.
I know because I am a book award judge.
As a judge, I am sent boxes of books, all entries in one category for major book awards. All from authors like you who want to promote their book as an award winner and apply those shiny award seals to the cover.
You as an author can create an award-winning, highly acclaimed book by avoiding the usual amateur mistakes and paying attention to fine book writing and production.
From front cover to back cover and every page in between, when you enter a book award contest, your book is under the microscope.
Let’s focus on how to win awards for authors.
The secrets of winners
What does it take to win or even be a finalist (still an award-winning designation) in book award competitions?
The answer is obvious, but I’ll tell you anyway: a well-written book (fiction or nonfiction, children’s picture book or coffee table book), a professionally designed and executed book (that means a stunning and suitable cover for the genre and a readable interior design), and a perfectly edited book on a topic of interest.
What do judges look for?
Overall appearance
Depending on the specific award procedure and judging rubric, we are asked to review each book.
We comment on the overall appearance, sometimes write critical feedback for the author, rank various aspects of the book such as cover and content, pricing and graphics, and give impressions about typos and writing style, author’s voice, plot, characters, and interior design.
How your book compares to others
Some contests ask us to rank the books in order. Yours might be number 1 with one judge and number 5 with another judge. Winners are among the highest average of the scoring. Depending on the award organization, you might receive comments from the judge and scoring sheets.
Professionalism
Your book is a package you are presenting to a reader to be opened and enjoyed. Judges are looking for the complete package: look, feel, professionalism, writing, story line.
Awards for authors are looking for professional-quality books and presentation.
Genre standards
We look to see if you have presented a book that fits the genre.
For example, large blocky titling on business books seems to be trendy, dark covers for true crime, gorgeous guys with abs and tats for romance, and cute and colorful kids and dogs for children’s books. If your book’s look doesn’t fit the genre, it often won’t get traction (or win awards). You don’t want to be the outlier in your genre.
How do you assess the best look for your book? Navigate to Amazon’s best sellers in your categories. Look at the top 20 or 50 books you’ll be competing against. Do you see mostly white and blue covers? Or orange and yellow? Bold titling or scripty? Be that book, better than those but not appreciably different.
Why? Because readers expect their mystery thrillers to look dark and foreboding. Fantasy to have some whimsy and maybe a dragon or two. Beach reads to be bright and summery.
But fitting the genre also means your book is clearly a memoir (not a business book too) or obviously history (but not fiction; otherwise it would be historical fiction). Any book will have a difficult time finding readership if it straddles genres.
Awards for authors: first impressions matter
Evaluating like a book buyer
When I open a box of possible winners, I do what potential book buyers do in a bookstore.
They look at the cover, turn to the back cover, and then open and riffle through the pages.
Book buyers online do the same thing when they review the cover (must be readable at a thumbnail size), peruse the description (what used to be vital back cover selling copy), and then “look inside” to peek at the readability of the pages.
Even at unboxing, I can clearly see those entrants that have been professionally designed both inside and out.
The pages are easy to read in a serif font. The covers are appropriate and intriguing. Words and images work together to convey a message about what the book is about. Photos all have detailed captions for nonfiction.
Common mistakes in cover design
We can always spot the do-it-yourself designs because you wanted to save a few bucks on production. Or the amateur cover designs that are too simple, too plain, too hard to read, with too many fonts.
Give your book the professional look and feel you put into your words.
For example, on the back cover, the nonwinners often have reverse type. What do I mean by reverse type? A black or dark cover with words in white. Unreadable words in white.
The human brain just can’t read too much reverse type, and then some clever designer tries to jam a bunch of text in reverse so the font is tiny, and you have text or testimonials that are unreadable.
The solution? Ask your designer to float a white box on a black cover so the text is in black and can be read. Easily. Keep back cover copy to a minimum of maybe a headline, 200 tightly written marketing words about the book or testimonials, maybe two lines of author bio, possibly an author photo, and the bar code area.
A professional author bio builds your reputation
Next, I turn to the back of the book pages and find the About the Author page and read who the author is.
Remember, I am probably judging nonfiction in business or self-help or health or memoir. I want to know the author’s expertise on this topic. I am looking for someone with the expertise to write this book, someone who has insider information.
Frontmatter and general readability
I return to the front: the table of contents (to get a sense of the overall organization), the chapter titles (enticing or bland?), the introduction (I read this entire section if there is one in nonfiction). Then I start with the first chapter.
Am I interested? Does this author have something new to say?
These are simple yes or no answers.
Is anything getting in the way of my reading just like you would experience if you had purchased this book or checked it out at your library? Barriers such as small font or odd spacing or awkward subheadings or funky photos or graphics (too small is always a no-no) or gutter too tight or paragraphs too long and gray?
I applaud each author and cherish your effort. I respect your bravery for entering awards for authors, and I promise, as I judge, to assess your flaws while honoring your words.
How to hook the judge
Professional editing is crucial
It's important to hook the awards judge right from the beginning. I can be forgiving of a typo or two or some inconsistency in capitalization or awkward hyphenation, but not three or four flubs that are easy to spot or one on every page or misspelled or misused words or awkward or missing punctuation.
The solution is a professional edit using the Chicago Manual of Style conventions (the book industry Bible). Hire a professional editor, not the English teacher next door, to give your words the sharpness of a fine edit.
Once I start reading, if I get caught up in your words, you’ve hooked me. I must admit this happens when the words flow and the story unfolds.
Be careful not to bog down readers (and award judges) with:
- cumbersome explanations,
- dense text,
- tiny graphics,
- unreadable charts,
- too many characters and holes in the plot, or
- no anchor in time and space.
Judging is subjective; target your opportunities
Keep in mind: your book might appeal to one judge and not to another because judging is subjective. Apples can’t be compared to other apples, although we try.
Let me tell you why this is a judging dilemma. All the health books sitting in front of me for judging recently were mostly blue (note to self: health books are trending blue). Topics range from a specific disease to more spiritual practices such as yoga to a workbook on healthcare leadership. What makes a book about eyesight a winner over a book about back pain? How can we compare cholesterol lowering to cancer prevention?
The authors are practitioners and physicians and patients. Prices range from $14.95 to $24.95. Some are small at under 100 pages; others are well over 250 pages.
How can a judge choose just one? The small details make all the difference (title, design, execution, writing).
There are thousands of awards for authors in the world.
I encourage you to join Book Award Pro to determine the best legitimate award contests to enter. Their AI platform will show you precisely which reviews and awards are a perfect fit for your book, and they can help you target the programs that provide you with the valuable feedback and prestige you seek.
Discover legitimate reviews & awards with Book Award Pro.
Position your book for professional success.
Who's the real winner?
Be satisfied that your book may be a winner in the minds of readers you don’t even know and will never meet. Not every reader leaves a stunning Amazon review or even a poor one (you can learn a lot from the critical reviews on Amazon or Goodreads to help guide a revision). Not every reader who loved your mystery thriller or memoir about an abusive childhood or cowboy romance will ever tell you.
I can’t speak for other judges, but I feel honored to judge a book by its cover and everything else, and I take my role seriously. I know how much work you put into your book.
Your best bet: keep writing good books that are professionally edited and designed.
Sandra Wendel judges nonfiction books for prestigious national awards.
She is a nonfiction book editor and author whose candid book about editing, Cover to Cover: What First-Time Authors Need to Know about Editing, has won six major book awards. Many of her authors have won book awards.
She teaches how to write a book at community colleges and volunteers at her local library. Her Medium Day 2023 presentation was on Stuff Writers Write That Makes Editors (and Readers) Cringe. You can follow her blog called Between the Lines on Medium.