Highlighting Indie Success
Indie Ink Awards
Books by marginalized authors, self-published books, and books by small presses often get overlooked. The Indie Ink Awards is a unique event that brings together the writing community to celebrate books that have made an impact on us. This is our way of highlighting the future we want to see in books–by uplifting those that shine.
The Indie Ink Awards is announcing the winner of the 2023 Awards on September 21, 2024 at Noon PST / 3pm EST.
Nominations for the 2024 awards will start on July 5, 2025, you will be able to nominate your favorite book in one of two categories and over 24 different aspects. All voting will take place on IndieStoryGeek.com.
The two categories are the Best-In awards and the Writing The Future We Need awards. The Best In awards should exemplify exceptional execution in the chosen category. We are looking for exceptional inclusion and diversity in works nominated for a Writing the Future We Need award.
Your published work must be self published/published by a small press AND on Indie Story Geek in order to be considered. Those published by a subsidiary of a Big 4 are not eligible. If your work is not on Indie Story Geek, you may create an online account and submit your published work. You are not allowed to nominate your work, but you may inform your readers that the Indie Ink Awards are taking place.
Once the nomination period starts, works will go through a process of elimination. The process has four phases.
- Nomination phase – books are nominated by readers on Indie Story Geek
- All nominated books are placed up for a vote by readers. The top 10 in every category are selected.
- Authors of selected books are contacted and asked to provide a digital ARC for our judges to review.
- Judges review selected books in their assigned category utilizing a rubric for increased objectivity. Winners are chosen and announced in September 2024
Judges have already been assigned. A huge THANK YOU to all the judges that have volunteered their time.
Categories
Best in Awards
- Best Audio Narration
- Best Book Cover and Best Cover Author
- Best Friendship
- Best Light Read
- Best Mentor Character
- Best Morally Gray Character
- Prettiest Book Interior
- Side Character MVP
- This Book Made Me Hungry/Thirsty
- Wittiest Character
- Best Setting
- Best Use of Tropes
Writing the Future We Need Awards
- Asexual or Aromantic Representation
- Asian Representation by an Asian Author
- Bisexual or Biromantic Representation
- Black Representation by a Black Author
- Disability Representation by a Disabled Author
- Gay or Lesbian Representation
- Indigenous Representation by an Indigenous Author
- LGBTQ+ Representation
- Latinx/Latine Representation by a Latinx/Latine Author
- Mental Health Representation
- Neurodivergent Representation by a Neurodivergent Author
- Trans or Nonbinary Representation
FAQs
What makes our awards program different?
One difference is that we’re focusing on small press and self-published books. We’re also not judging based on genre, as there are already so many awards programs that do that. We’re looking instead at other aspects of the books, such as character relationships.
If I win, what will I get?
The contest begins July 2022, with the nominations phase. Readers can nominate their favorite books for the best categories, and the number of times the book is nominated will be tallied in the background. Then in August, we open to our Voting phase, where all readers can vote for their favorite book in each category. The top selections will be contacted in September to see if they want to move on to the Judging phase, sending a review copy to our judges. In October, judges begin reading their top 5-10 picks and choose their favorite for that category. Winners will be notified in February 2023, and in March 2023, we’ll have our Indie Ink Awards Ceremony.
How do I participate as a reader?
Readers will be nominating books to award categories. Nominations will open in July 2022, and readers will nominate their favorites on IndieStoryGeek.com. In August, readers will vote for their favorites in each category. You can vote for multiple books, but only one vote per book per category. Don’t forget to tell your friends to participate, in both the Nomination and the Voting phases of the competition! **However, if your book is nominated, or if you have a vested interest in any book, please abstain from voting.
I want to be a judge! How do I apply?
We welcome all applicants as judges: bloggers, Instagrammers, bookTokers, podcasters, avid readers. We do advise that you select categories on which you feel you give unbiased feedback and critique. If you have a book that is nominated for an award, we do ask that you do not vote or apply as a judge. Interested in being a judge? Click here and fill out our form!
What does being a judge entail?
The role of the judges are to pick the winners within each award category after the nomination and voting phases. Judges will each be assigned five books to read. If a book doesn’t click with them or contains triggering or other troublesome content, they can swap it out for another contender, and if they’d love to read more than five, they’re welcome to! Each judge will conduct three rounds of reading and scoring on their own timetable with their batch of books: the first 5 pages, then the first chapter, and then the entire book. After each round of reading, the book scoring the lowest (the one the judge likes least) may be dropped while the others can move on to the next round. But if a judge wants to read the entirety of all their assigned books, they’re more than welcome to!
Each book will have multiple judges, and the one that scores overall highest for a category will win for that category.
This sounds fun! I'm an author, how do I get my book into this contest?
Authors are not allowed to nominate their own book. If you’re interested in competing, urge your readers to nominate your book for whatever categories they feel are applicable. Once we proceed to the voting phase, you can urge them again to vote (whether or not they nominated any books). Authors may be judges, but any judge may NOT have a book in the running for the competition. (This is true for the admin team as well–no person in the admin team can compete in this contest.)
My book was nominated, but it's not the first in the series. Can I send in the first book instead?
We recognize that sometimes later books in the series might meet certain categories better than the first. This happens. However, we will be trusting our judges to evaluate the book that was nominated and voted to the top as best they can on its own merits, rather than evaluating a book that wasn’t voted to the top for that category.
If I do not reside in the US, can I still participate?
Yes! Please join us! Whether you’re a reader, author, or a potential judge, we welcome participants from around the world.
How does a book become an award winner?
There are 4 phases to the award process.
- Nomination phase – books are nominated by readers on IndieStoryGeek.com
- All nominated books are placed up for a vote by readers. The top 10 in every category are selected.
- Authors of selected books are contacted and asked to provide a digital ARC for our judges to review.
- Judges review selected books in their assigned category utilizing a rubric for increased objectivity. Winners are chosen and announced in March 2023
My book is not written in English. Can my book still be nominated?
As of right now, we are only accepting books written in English.
As an author of a book nominated for an award, what do I do?
Nothing! If you do see that your book has been nominated into the top 10 of a category, one of the Indie Inked Award staff members will be in touch with you. The easier you are to find, the better! If you have a website with a contact page or prefer social media, we will do our best to contact you where appropriate.
My co-authored book was nominated in a top 10 category. Do I need the other author's permission to send in an ARC for evaluation?
We do recommend sharing the good news with your co-authors. We do ask that you have permission from all authors before sending in an ARC to our judges.
Who is Inked in Gray?
Inked in Gray is a small press dedicated to publishing works with a message that are too visceral and niche for the traditional marketplace. Inked in Gray represents works and collaborations above and beyond the traditional novel. Upcoming releases include a speculative fiction podcast, mental health and pro-equality merchandise, and of course, all the books.
Who is Indie Story Geek?
Indie Story Geek is a place to highlight the amazing indie books out there with reviews from readers like you. All books on IndieStoryGeek.com are web serials, small press, or self-published books. Most review sites use a 5-star rating system, but we wanted to give more of a peek into the reading experience the book offers, so we have a visual review system instead. Readers use sliders to describe their experience in regards to 8 aspects, and from that information, the system generates a spider-web of their story image. When multiple readers review a story, the story-image that shows up first is the result of the average of all the reviews. Readers can also add a short description of their thoughts, link to a full review elsewhere, and contribute any trigger or content warnings they think are applicable.
Come take a peek and find your next great indie read.
