Literary Contests

Having been hunting for some literary contests myself, I decided to compile a list that other authors might find useful. Please note I do not personally endorse any of the contests listed, nor do I receive any recompense for finding and listing them. This has been a personal project for my own use which I'm happy to share the results from. :)

If you have any to recommend/add please enter a link in the comments, thank you.


  • ARIANA eBook Cover Art Awards™ - recognizes the best in eBook covers. Judging is influenced by the appropriateness of artwork to genre, the artist(s) attention to detail (including style and/or method), and the effectiveness of presentation, that is, whether the book's title, author’s name, publisher logo/information, etc. clearly viewed. Entry is open from 1st June through until the 15th of July. Please check with their website for details on eligibility and rules.
  • e-Book Cover Design Awards - a monthly competition for published e-books only ie your book must already be available to buy. No PDF e-books, please. In order to keep the competition narrowly focused please submit only e-books for Kindle, Nook, iBooks or other e-readers. To avoid rejected URLs, please shorten your Amazon links.
  • EPIC's eBook Awards™, formerly known as EPPIE, began in 2000 to recognize excellence in ePublished works. The eBook Awards are open to all electronically published works: novels, graphic novels, short stories, non-fiction, and poetry.  Entry is open from 1st June through until the 15th of July. Please check with their website for details on eligibility and rules.
  • The Rebecca - Land of Enchantment Romance Authors (LERA) - April 1 Contest Opens, July 15 Deadline for submissions, September 16 Finalists notified by e-mail on or before this date., October 13 Winners announced at the LERA October meeting. Categories and sub-genres (Contemporary, Historical, Paranormal/SFR/UF, Category Romance, Young Adult (YA)). Entrant eligibility - all authors are welcome to enter, regardless of published or unpublished status. Contest entries may not be contracted for or published in any form before contest deadlind. Guidelines - opening five thousand (5, 000) words of a romance novel in one of the sub-genres listed. Do not include the author's name at any point in the document. Manuscripts should include the title in left upper corner, page numbers in right corner. Standard manuscript format: Times New Roman - 12 pt font/double-spaced. 5,000 word count determined by computer word count (the contest committee recommends that authors cut off text at the end of a complete sentence, even if the count falls short of exactly 5,000). 
  • Contests that focus on (but are not solely open to) indie published works. All genres and lengths.
  • Upcoming RWA contests (romance)

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