Book Awards

Are they actually worth it?

By Jerry Blaze

Every year, the indie community gets treated to a new set of accolades that are often touted as witness to the skill of work. These come in the form of book awards that often carry cute names like: Booktok Awards, Indie Wonder Awards, Golden Scoop Awards, etc.

However, they are usually all trumped by the bigger awards offered at KillerCon or StokerCon, such as the Splatterpunk Awards and the Stokers.

In theory, anyone can win any of these awards if they’ve been nominated. They have a “fair chance” of winning. That, however, is the theory, and theories are often proven wrong. I’ve been nominated for dozens of awards in dozens of categories over the past two years, but I’ve never won anything in a nomination award contest.

And yes, it’s a contest.

A popularity contest.

These awards are granted to people through a system of voting. The same names get picked every year and the same fans and readers vote on them every year. Any fresh talent or successful writer usually has to wait until one of those names gets canceled or dies before they can have a fighting chance.

And the waitlist is pretty long.

However, all is not lost for the plucky writer who wants to feel celebrated beyond category numbers, orange tags and five-star reviews. Sites like BookAwardPro can be utilized to help writers find book contests where they pay a fee (generally $75-120 per category) to submit their book into a category where a panel of judges will read it. The catch is that most of the time, you’ll always win so you’ll always come back.

I’m not saying it’s a scam, but I am saying that most will believe it is, and it could harm the reputation of the writer or book. Some contests that ask for fees are doing them for good causes. I've personally entered the Literary Titan and FireBird book contests before, and while I won the Literary Titan, I actually did not win the FireBird.

So while you might find a book award that’s a guaranteed win, it’s not uncommon to lose out.

Except, here’s my ultimate question.

Is it worth it?

Is winning an award actually worth it?

I’ve seen a lot of authors attempt to utilize the fact that they won the Splatterpunk awards or the Stokers or the Golden Scoop or the Indie BookTok Awards, but I’ve still never read anything they’ve written. I’ve actually tried promoting authors who won the Splatterpunk Award to people and the answer is “Huh, never heard of ‘em!”

One of my editors won the Splatterpunk Award recently and he said his book sales have been in the toilet, like one whole book sold with a handful of page reads in an entire year! Now, this could be from lack of promotion or lack of marketing or lack of dedication, but in all honesty, it’s just the fact that awards do little to bolster the reputation of an author.

If anything, the awards like the Splatterpunk and all the Indie awards seem to do a much better job of hurting the reputation of an author and an author’s confidence. It’s pretty hard to see your book sales shoot through the roof when your name doesn’t manage to break through the wall of the “chosen ones” every year.

And the paid book awards are great, but carry their own baggage in the context of reputation. Buying an award is often seen as a dirty trick or a negative implication. I saw one author talking about how she has over 50-100 book awards and yet, not only had I never heard of her, but my first thought was…Damn, your bank account must look pretty red by now.

It’s not an overall negative thing to win an award; it can be beneficial and helpful to the reputation or confidence of an author. Even a successful shortlist nomination can be helpful if utilized correctly.

But overall, in my opinion, an author is who they are both in and out of their books. I’ll buy your stuff if you’re an A+ individual or have some excellent reads, not because you manage to break into the Stokers or Splatters or BookTok Banana Bloodbath Awards or bought a Ben Franklin Writer Award of the Year certificate.

Then again, I’ve never tried to fit in with the community, so…I might buy your book regardless!