Prizes, Awards, & Good News for SKIN
Beyond superlatives, awards can help create your novel's "long tail" of success.
My office is in a moving truck and I’ve been living out of a suitcase for three weeks. My attention has been everywhere but on The Skin and Its Girl’s impending paperback release. I did events at Furman University en route from DC to Austin while my dog and cat hung out in the English Department (“Putting the fur in Furman,” said my clever friend Stacey). From many unfamiliar couches, I’ve been getting ready for an AWP panel on debuting, which will become a one-session online class at The Loft next month. But the real news is that three weeks ago, as I was sorting my garage into plastic tubs, wondering whether climbing shoes expire from disuse, I idly flicked through my phone and saw an email from the American Library Association.
The Skin and Its Girl was just chosen as a Stonewall Honor Book, winner of the Barbara Gittings Literature Award. If this news had bobbed to shore in a tiny bottle, it wouldn’t have been more astonishing.
It’s during what folks in publishing call award season: for the NBCC Awards, the National Book Award finalists, the Lambda Literary Awards shortlist, and yes, the ALA’s Stonewall Honor Books. For a spring release like mine, this period falls somewhere in the slump after the fanfare of publishing a book has worn off and before I’ve gotten into enough of a routine with the next novel to feel very hopeful about it. In short, I’d rather watch Tracy Chapman perform at the Grammys and read Richard Powers’ The Overstory and watch the kestrels hunt in my new neighborhood.
Awards are self-explanatory, maddeningly subjective, irksomely superlative, and as subjective as anything else is in the arts. Competition is uncomfortable and toxic to the psyche. But literary awards are also one of the few ways novel’s get a boost after your publisher turns attention to other books. Some orgs give out a shiny seal to put on the book cover; others publish longlists and shortlists that readers use as reading suggestions. The American Library Association’s awards matter too, as my librarian sister says, because libraries across the U.S. use the Stonewall Awards as a buying guide. In short, awards are a way to connect an unknown/debut writer with their most enthusiastic readers.
In this brief post, I will talk about the search-and-submission process and communication with your publisher. I’ll also share a sample spreadsheet for award submissions, and close with a few caveats.
Finding the Awards
Award nominations don’t just happen. They have websites, deadlines, submission portals, application fees, and an opaque selection process that will feel familiar to every writer who has ever applied for anything. (The Hugos might be an exception, were it not for this year’s scandal.)
Every genre has its award space: e.g., the Edgars for mystery, Hugos for sci-fi, the RITA for romance. Some awards sprawl across a few categories, like the Lambda Literary Awards for queer books. Literary fiction is just another genre, and you wouldn’t be reading this if you didn’t know about the Pulitzers. These are the big awards that will be on your publisher’s radar, and the time to mention that you’d like your book to be considered for them is in the editorial meeting before you even consider an offer. If awards matter to you, you’ll really want your publisher’s support, and your editor should be aware and enthusiastic about this plan from Day 1.
Beyond the awards that matter to your publisher, what awards matter to you? What awards matter to your audience?
As a reader, I care about the Stonewall Honor Books, the Lambda Literary Awards, and the Arab American Book Award. I write for people who care about those books too. They were the first ones I jotted down in my spreadsheet when I started a list for my publisher; i.e., don’t assume your publishing team tracks all the awards you’re eligible for, so be proactive and send an informative list of the ones that you care about, and check in before each deadline to make sure it doesn’t get forgotten.
Secondarily, apply for any and all of the awards you’re eligible for. Why not? It’s a way to find more readers. You’ll learn more about your field, and you might meet some books to add to your own TBR list along the way. To populate your list, note what awards your favorite novels within your genre have won. Also, give yourself an hour or two and just comb through some databases like the ones below, read the guidelines, and compile relevant info (more on that below).
My Google Sheets template, which I will share with you a few sections down.
I’m sure there are other good ones—if so, please leave a note in the comments! There are also tools like Book Award Pro, which might work for some folks; I didn’t find it all that helpful because the signal-to-noise ratio seems low, yielding a lot of obscure search results. And last but not least, ask the folks in your writing community which awards they pay attention to.
Submitting
Before you send a list of awards to your publisher, understand the size of the favor you’re asking for. Many of the awards require a few copies of the book as well as a steep submission fee (usually between $50 and $100). It also takes a lot of footwork: your editor, or more likely their assistant, does each and every submission for you. In many cases, this is required by the awarding organizations.
Surely, you know how much work it takes to apply to something on Submittable. How excited would you be to do that work, times twenty, for someone else? Multiplied again by how many authors at the same imprint who are shooting for the same awards? This is why I said it’s important to have an enthusiastic publishing team who knows which awards matter to you and why; and also why editorial assistants deserve higher pay.
Do all you can to make their work easier. Which leads us to the spreadsheet.
Tracking Submissions
Before I share this Google Sheets document with you, I’m going to say it loudly: IF YOU WANT TO USE THIS TEMPLATE, MAKE A COPY. It’s not editable and won’t work unless you do.
The other thing is, I’m sharing it the lazy way. This is only a list of awards I compiled in late 2022 for The Skin and Its Girl, a queer debut literary novel about Arabs. If that’s not what you write, delete the awards that don’t apply and work on finding your own.
Here’s the link to the Google Sheets doc.
Again, this is just a template. Go to “File —> Make a Copy,” and then you’ll have your own personal spreadsheet to edit to your heart’s content, until you’re ready to share it with your publisher. Ideally, it will become the place your entire team references as deadlines approach.
Two Caveats
First, if your book wins something, it might help with sales. It’s not a guarantee. The award has to be meaningful to readers and well-publicized. Interestingly, the publishing industry tracks the effect of the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award on sales, as well as that of some other high-profile international awards. The boost can be anywhere from 140 to over 300 percent above pre-announcement weekly sales. That’s wonderful, yay! But with greater visibility and a wider audience, however, comes a higher chance of negative reader reviews. Publishers Weekly speculates that although more people are buying the book, some of them aren’t the novel’s ideal audience—they are merely impressed by the award and then go on to leave a disappointed, ill-matched review. Bottom line: awards feel thrilling, but most of the time, winning or not-winning one will not change your life. Your creative trajectory matters more, so keep your head down and write the next thing.
Second, relatedly, take care of your mental health. We live in a measurement-obsessed culture that values competition over collaboration, scarcity over abundance, and elitist fuckery over open access. (Maybe this should be my next AWP panel.) The healthiest way to apply for anything is to not look back once the application is done. Stay immersed in whatever is tangible. Work with your hands. Breathe fresh air. Write. Don’t compare yourself to others.
As this conference reminds me every year, we writers work among a mind-boggling number of peers. We are all collaborating on ways to use language and storytelling to delight, transform, reflect, witness, and imagine our futures; and to preserve and expand the space for new voices in a culture that needs them. We are all contributors to this effort, which is bigger than you or me. If literature contained only the novels that won big awards, it would be a smallish room—not the gorgeous infinite ongoing practice that it truly is.
If you’re at AWP, come find me on Thursday at 10:30 a.m. in Room 2101 while I chat about debuting with some other writers who have wisdom to share. And if you miss the panel on debuting, I’m teaching it as a three-hour online seminar on March 2, also via the Loft. I’ll also be signing books at the Mizna/RAWI booth, #1431, from 1:30–4 p.m. and at the Vermont Studio Center’s booth #1438 from 4–5 p.m.
Last-last thing: Applying for grants or residencies soon? Join me on Feb. 17 (next Saturday) at 2 p.m. Central for a one-session online class on upping your application game via the Loft.
Congrats on the ALA Stonewall Award, Sarah!
Thank you so much, Sarah. For sharing your story, your experience, and your encouragement with the rest of us.