Build the award plan
Choose the best award category
When an award offers many categories, enter the one that describes the book most precisely, not the one with the biggest name or the largest field.
Why it matters
Category choice affects who reads the book and what it is compared to. A specialist judge notices what a generalist misses. Entering broad categories to chase a bigger prize usually means competing against books that aren't like yours, judged by people who don't read your kind of book. The specific category is also where a finalist listing means something to the people who care about that field.
Your part
- What you do
- Decide. Make a judgment about fit, cost, or strategy.
- Who normally owns it
- Author and publisher together. Whoever enters chooses; author and publisher should agree
- When
- At entry, for each program (Build the award plan: twelve to six months before publication, because eligibility windows close early)
How to do it
The full walkthrough
Award programs with many categories put the category choice on the entrant, and it is a real decision. A memoir about running a restaurant could go in memoir, in food writing, or in business. General fiction is a category; so is historical fiction, and so, in some programs, is regional fiction. The broadest category has the most entrants and the most general judges. The narrowest accurate category has judges who know the field and fewer books to compare against.
The rule of thumb is to enter where the book would be read by the most knowledgeable judge, which is almost always the more specific category. If the book genuinely straddles two, read the category definitions on the rules page and pick the one whose description you could defend without qualification.
Traditionally published authors should ask the publisher which category it chose when it entered the book, so the author's entries elsewhere are consistent and so the same book is not entered in two categories of one program by two people. Hybrid and self-published authors choose alone, and should resist the temptation, common in programs that charge per category, to enter several.
Some programs allow one entry in a second category for an extra fee. Do that only when the book truly fits both, and not as a hedge.
Common mistakes
- Entering general fiction or general nonfiction because it sounded more important.
- Entering four categories in one program to improve the odds.
- Choosing a category by its name without reading its definition.
- Entering an adult category for a young adult book because the adult category had more winners.
What done looks like
- The full category list read before entering, not just the first page of the form.
- The category definitions compared against the book's actual subject, audience, and form.
- One category chosen per program, with a second only where the fit is genuine.
- The choice recorded in the awards calendar so it can be repeated or revised next cycle.
- The publisher's category choice confirmed for any program it enters.
Ask your publisher
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Sources and last checked
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- Last checked
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