The Book Contest/Book Festival Hustle

As the editor for Rama y Raíces, The Best of CALMA,  I'm always looking for opportunities to promote our work. With that in mind, I entered our book in the 2026 San Francisco Book Festival. We took first place in Compilations/Anthologies, however since there was only one other finalist in that category, I thought the competition was rather thin. As I'd never heard of this festival, before entering, I did my due diligence, noting that this wasn't the first year for this festival. I spot-checked some of the previous finalists, finding that all I looked into were self-published. Well, so was Ramas y Raíces. In fact, in many such contests and festivals, the majority of entrants have been, in my experience, self-published. What we all seek with these competitions is the validation of our efforts and a recognition of our place in the literary world.

 Source: San Francisco Festival of Books

My Spider-sense did tingle. After signing on for this festival, I started getting emails for festivals with similar names: Hollywood Book Festival. New York Book Festival. New England Book Festival. Horror Book Festival. And even during the writing of this blog post, I received an invitation to the Southern California Book Festival. All the webpages had almost identical layouts. Turns out the awards ceremony for all these festivals would be at the Los Angeles Book Festival (not to be confused with the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books). Some CALMA members expressed concern this endeavor might be a scam, selling tickets to a nonexistent event, and this prompted me to do more sleuthing. The ceremony venue was listed as the Roosevelt Hollywood Hotel. I couldn't find any mention of the Los Angeles Book Festival on the hotel website and my voice mail to the hotel went unanswered. 

But more digging around led me to the The Los Angeles Book Festival's Facebook group and their webpage.  

Turns out that these festivals are hosted by JM Northern Media, LLC, and click here to read what the National Writers Union says about them. And there's more vitriol here. Not to defend JM Northern Media, but these posts were written years ago so perhaps much has changed since then.

From last year's Award Ceremony we have this group photo of JM Northern Media's finalists.

 

Source:  Facebook-Los Angeles Books Awards 

The main accusation against such contests and festivals is that they can be an awards mill hustle. An organization announces a contest with a fee of $50 per entry--100 entries means $5,000. To some, that is a nice haul. Keep in mind that $50 is on the low end of entry fees. The International Impact Book Awards asks $79 for one category entry with a sliding scale going to a five-category deal of $259. Shelf Unbound's 2026 Best Indie Book is asking $130 for early bird pricing. Some of the more prestigious awards, like the Edgar Awards from the Mystery Writers of America, charge no entry fee but MWA is a large organization funded with membership dues in addition to gifts and grants.

Also, some contests and festivals sell packages offering more media exposure, tables to sell your books, etc., but that's all par for the course.

Then there's griping about paying to attend the award's ceremony. The Colorado Books Awards charges to attend their awards ceremony, in addition to their $60 contest entry fee. Hosting award ceremonies ain't cheap, especially if you add a wet bar and banquet services, even if it's simply hors d'ouerves. And hotels are notorious for pulling fast ones. (You didn't know there's a separate charge for AV setup?) 

Finally, people complain about getting their hopes up, thinking that whatever award they win will provide a life-changing leap forward, only to get a certificate to hang on the wall and another line to add to their author bio. Whether you think any award is worth your time, that's up to you. Buyer beware.