Indie Authors' Book Contests

A display for my sales table for Secret in the Mist:
an Abi Wunder Mystery, which was finally
sent to the formatting company, 100 Covers,
and will soon be published!

By Linda Wilson   @LinWilsonauthor

After several of my children’s books placed in contests, an experienced writer friend told me, “Now you can say you’re a multi-award-winning children’s author.” It’s true. Awards have stacked up for my four picture books and one chapter book. That’s because I applied for them. Happily, certificates and front-cover stickers are a testament that your books stand out.

There are fees, some quite hefty. To me, the cost is worth it. Most of my sales are made at arts and crafts festivals and fairs. Occasionally, I’ll tell customers that the book in their hand has won an award. But mostly, they can see the stickers prominently placed on the book covers, and I don’t have to say a word. Also, I display certificates, ribbons, and other tokens received.

There are many more contests to explore than the list compiled in this article. Simply google “Book contests for children’s authors.” But for starters, these listed organizations offer a great service to children’s authors and for those with little ones in their life.

Organizations that offer many Opportunities

Book Excellence Awards: team@bookexcellenceawardsupport.com 

• A long list of categories
• A Book Excellence Awards certificate
• A sticker for the book

Eric Hoffer Book Award for the Small, Academic and Independent Press: https://hofferaward.com  

• An organization worth studying
• The US Review of Books supports this award by publishing the annual results
• Reasonably priced
• Registration form on website

Kirkus Review for Indie Authors: https://www.kirkusreviews.com 

• Explore the Kirkus website. It is loaded with Kirkus’ choice of great books to read and information about the organization. Quoted here is part of what Kirkus offers Indie authors: Our indie reviews are written by qualified professionals, such as librarians, nationally published journalists, creative executives and more. While we do not guarantee positive reviews, unfavorable reviews can be taken as valuable feedback for improvements and ultimately do not have to be published on our site. With our most popular review option priced at $450, you can receive an affordable book review that could generously boost your writing career.
• Kirkus reviewed my first book, Secret in the Stars: An Abi Wunder Mystery. I learned from the feedback offered, and was gratified that the book received the distinction of being a “Kirkus Recommended Book.” I did not receive a certificate or sticker, so I had a sticker made at https://stickerapp.com, which is placed on the book.

Mom’s Choice Award: https://momschoiceawards.com 

• Has a global presence in 70 countries
• In addition to children’s books, awards baby gates, kids’ meds, playpens, and more
• First fee is hefty, discounted for additional award requests
• Certificate and stickers are included
• Mom Knows Best newsletter
• Interview series
• And much more

National Federation of Press Women: https://www.nfpw.com 

• To give you an idea of who NFPW is, here is information from the website: NFPW members are professional women and men pursuing careers across the communications spectrum: Reporters • Editors • Authors • Bloggers • Designers • Artists • Photographers • Publicists • Freelancers • Students • Active professionals • Retired professionals.
• Writers work for: print magazines, newspapers and newsletters • Online publications • Government officials • Banks • Public relations agencies • Higher education • School districts • Nonprofit agencies  • Ourselves as independent contractors.
• 2026 Communications contest is now open
• Two categories for entrance are the Professional Contest and the High School Contest
• Enter the contest in states that have an affiliate. If there is no affiliate, enter at-large.
• Work must be published or broadcast from January 1, 2025 to December 31, 2025
• Certificates and stickers
• The work of first-place winners in your state automatically are sent to compete nationwide. National first-place winners are honored at the annual conference. A stipend is available for first, first-place national winners.
• My picture book A Packrat’s Holiday: Thistletoe’s Gift, illustrated by Nancy Batra, won first prize in the NM Press Women 2022 Communications Contest, and went on to win first prize nationally in Children’s Book: Fiction. My book proudly displays the organization’s Winner’s sticker. Also, to show the book won first prize, I had a blue-ribbon sticker with “1st” made at https://stickerapp.com.

National Indie Excellence Awards, NIEA: https://www.indieexcellence.com 

•  From the website: NIEA is an annual awards program that honors self-published authors and small to mid-sized independent publishers. It aims to promote high-quality books and provide recognition to authors who put significant effort into their work. The awards are open to all English language printed books available for sale, including those from small presses and self-published authors. Study the website for more information.

Society of Children’s Book Authors and Illustrators, SCBWI, offers many award and grant opportunities, simply found on Google: https://www.scbwi.org. Also, check your state for organizations that offer contests.

Story Monsters: https://storymonsters.com 

• Story Monsters Ink magazine
• Book publishing and marketing departments
• Free consultations
• Story Monsters does not impose a limit on year of publication
• Certificates, stickers, and other tokens are available
• Three SM contests:   

Purple Dragonfly Book Award: Enter your book by the earlybird deadline: March 1, 2026; final deadline May 2, 2026

Royal Dragonfly Book Award: Earlybird deadline August 1, 2026; final deadline October 3, 2026

Story Monsters Approved Contest: Final deadline February 1. 2026

The Book Fest: https://www.thebookfest.com

• The Book Fest Book Awards for Spring 2026 will open this winter
• Awards are offered for legacy books

Winning awards can do more for you than displaying certificates and stickers. You can see how your books stack up to other children’s authors’ books. A win offers you a personal reward for the effort you’ve made in creating your books. A win is an accomplishment above and beyond the writing of your books. Knowledgeable judges have seen something in your books that has merited an award. Winning book awards is something to be proud of. 

My latest book, Cuna en la Naturaleza, the
Spanish version of Cradle in the Wild,
illustrated by 1000 Storybooks and
translated by Adriana Botero placed 
as a Finalist in the NM Writers organization.
This is the display I made for my sales table.

Linda's two new releases are Botas Altas, the Spanish version of Tall Boots, translated by Graciela Moreno and Adriana Botero, and Cuna en la Naturaleza, the Spanish version of Cradle in the Wild, translated by Adriana Botero. Visit Linda at https://bit.ly/3AOM98L.

Author Lessons from the Past: Oprah's Book Club

 

 

Lessons from the Past

 

When Oprah Tolled the Bell for Her

Book Club 

 

 

By Carolyn Howard-Johnson

            

Once upon a time not so very long ago,news reverberated not only through the literary book community but throughout the entire book world. The first message I read was cryptic: Oprah would no longer recommend book titles on a monthly basis. I was devastated.  I wanted to know more.

I turned to The New York Times.

Oprah was quoted: “It has become harder and harder to find books on a monthly basis that I feel absolutely compelled to share…”  Now I was just plain confused.

Did Oprah mean it was harder because there are none out there to choose from? 

I can’t believe that. If rumors are true, her slush pile makes Mt. McKinley look puny. I visualize two floors of readers in a building the size Grand Central Station. Toiling nearby are young lit majors all, feverishly combing through what they “think” might impress Oprah enough for them to submit a recommendation. I see them as incredibly eager to please and not too keen on making mistakes; they naturally turn more and more to the recommendations of the time-honored publishing houses and reviewers and everyone knows those guys haven’t taken any risks on new authors for at least a couple of decades.

This of course, is my opinion, but I think if readers go back over her selections for the last few months before she quit way back then they might smell the same stagnant book-breath that I have: Jonathan Franzen of New Yorker, he of “most ungrateful artist of the year” fame, is among those chosen. So are at least three titles by Toni Morrison, at least two by Bill Cosby. Others include the totally “unknown names” of those times—Joyce Carol Oates, Isabel Allende, Maeve Binchy, Elizabeth Berg and Barbara Kingsolver. And, yes, those quotation marks connote irony. 

At first—you know—when it was easy to find “good” books—Oprah’s picks were authors of little renown. She chose novelists with important things to say and a unique way of saying them and didn’t give a T-tinkers darn who published the book or if the author’s name was known to anybody. It is said that her well-intentioned program became inundated with hopefuls. So are those the authors that come in such short supply these days of the indie-author craze? 

I’m sorry. I get diverted. I was saying that I am confused. Was finding a good book with a literary slant harder because books that fit Oprah’s priorities were becoming rarer? I happen to know that several large publishers of the time (then called embarrassingly “vanity” publishers, a term that reeks of #bookbigotry!) were flooding her offices with boxes full of their mostly poorly edited books as part of a “promotional program” they charged unsuspecting authors upward of $300 to present to her. It was unlikely, but there might have been a real diamond among the unformed hunks of carbon in those boxes! Unformed hunks with poorly designed covers by the cartsful would not have attract her attention or even the attentions of her those assigned to find the best available in the pool of new talent. 

To my knowledge, Oprah did not open those boxes. I certainly hope she did not mean that books of worth were not out there, then or now. I prefer to believe—after all, she has done for readin’ and writin’—that she is saying that her book selection program got out of hand. It was too expensive, to unwieldy, too fraught with personalities and personal agendas–to put up with it anymore. That is what I hope she was saying.

The reason I long for that interpretation is that I think she was doing the right thing and I would like the literary world to focus on that, not on the idea that she has no confidence in America’s pool of new talent. I would like the publishers and reviewers and readers to consider what she may very have well seen for herself—that the club had, in the last few months, lost the discovery quality it once had. It certainly wasn’t only the Franzen snafu. Each time a new selection was announced, I rather absently wondered where all the new blood, the new themes, the special warmth had gone. Her choices seemed to throw up the bylines of those we had already seen, those who needed no more  exposure than they already had (see the list above). It had been a long time since an obscure press or name appeared on her list and I don’t think it is because none of them had published worthy books.

In other words, Oprah was selecting books that her audience needed no “help” in finding. These were books that would have made it to the New York Times list on the momentum of their authors’ names and their publishers’ names alone—no help was needed from Oprah, thank you.

So if the expense and red tape of Oprah’s program got out of hand, and the service she was providing was deteriorating to more of the same provided by every other top ten list in the country, then she exercised the same savvy aptitude for decision making that has propelled her to the top of her field. If she is saying, “This is enough. It isn’t doing what it is supposed to do,” then I applaud her.

Trouble is, the industry missed Oprah and so do those few outstanding authors out there twisting in the wind—the ones who, without the Book Club’s support (as it was originally conceived)—will never, ever be discovered. 

I understand Oprah is back again, though it doesn’t seem she is as active as she was. Let’s just say she may have missed the best time to shoutout the good books that might have done some great good in trying times. Or we can say that what has been said before. American Greed got the best of us. We are all at fault. Desperate authors looking for the easiest way to be recognized. Celebrities like Oprah doing the best they could but missing the perseverance quotient. And some really spammy publishers who finished off the glowing possibilities of discovery we all hoped for. 

 

More About This #WritersontheMove Contributor

Carolyn Howard-Johnson brings her experience as a publicist, journalist, marketer, editor, and retailer to the advice she gives in her HowToDoItFrugally Series of books for writers and the many classes she taught for nearly a decade as instructor for UCLA Extension’s world-renown Writers’ Program. She is celebrating the release of the third edition of “The Frugal Editor” in her HowToDoItFrugally Series of books published by Modern History Press, with more on the way. The first and second editions of that book won awards from USA Book News, Readers’ Views Literary Award, the marketing award from Next Generation Indie Books and the coveted Irwin award. The new edition is full of updates and the stuff the publishing world keep throwing at us authors--the new stuff you need to know. She loves #SharingwithWriters anywhere she can find them. Thank you, #WritersontheMove!