iUniverse Blog

iUniverse today is examining that historically chauvinistic bastion of the traditional book publishing world –Literary Awards. For any book to win a literary award is the ultimate accolade, however in the early days of indie books the traditional awards were reluctant to accept self-published books, however things have changed dramatically as the revolution in book publishing has gathered such momentum. Nowadays most of the big boys of the US and international book awards accept indie books, including The Pulitzer. As well as national awards there are regional ones, genre specific ones and, of cause, the many book festivals across the country and overseas.

Winning an award is not only prestigious, but can be very lucrative too. Entry fees vary but if you want to generate more book sales then it may well be worth the expense given the potential returns that winning will engender.

For a comprehensive list of literary awards organizations that include self-published books, take a look at The Book Designer website.

For awards that cater specifically for self-published books, take a look at the following:

Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award

IndieReader Discovery Awards

National Indie Excellence Book Awards

Writers Digest Self Published Book Awards

Next Generation Indie Book Awards

Just one recent example of award winning self-published books is the best-selling, ‘Changing Behavior: Immediately Transform Your Relationships with Easy-to-Learn, Proven Communication Skills’ by Georgianna Donadio. Other famous authors who have self-published include award-winning authors such as Stephen King and John Grisham.

iUniverse urges you to enter your book into literary awards, not just for the prestige, but also for the publicity for both the book and the author; and more importantly for those extra dollars.