Book Awards for Publishers


We’ve put together a list of book awards for you to consider submitting your eligible titles to, with deadlines in May and June.

The Academy of American Poets sponsors the $5,000 James Laughlin Award and the $25,000 Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize. The Laughlin Award will be given for a second book under contract with a publisher scheduled for release between January 1, 2020, and December 31, 2020. There is no entry fee. The Marshall Poetry Prize is given for the most outstanding poetry book published in the previous calendar year. Entry fee: $75. Deadline for both awards: May 15.

The Crook’s Corner Book Prize is given for a first novel set in the American South (Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia) and published between January 1, 2018, and May 15, 2019. Entry fee: $35.
Deadline: May 15.

The $10,000 National Book Awards will be given in the categories of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, young people’s literature, and translation for books published between December 1, 2018, and November 30, 2019. Entry fee: $135. Deadline: May 15.

The New England Book Awards, sponsored by the New England Independent Booksellers Association, are given for books about New England, set in New England, or by an author residing in New England. Hardcover, paperback originals, and reissues published between September 1, 2018, and August 31, 2019, are eligible. Entry fee: $25. Deadline: June 14.

The $15,000 Pulitzer Prizes are given for books of poetry, fiction, general nonfiction, and biography, and history published in the previous year. The entry fee is $75. The deadline for books published between January 1, 2019, and June 14, 2019, is June 15.

The SCIBA Book Awards, sponsored by the Southern California Independent Booksellers Association, will be given for books of fiction, nonfiction, biography/memoir, mystery, young adult, and children’s novels that reflect Southern California culture or experience published between July 1, 2018, and June 30, 2019. The author and/or Illustrator must reside within the SCIBA region. Deadline for nominations: June 30.