Submission Rules
A few things have changed this year, please review our current submission rules below. If you have questions after reviewing the submission rules, don’t hesitate to email Ellen Busch at ebusch1500@gmail.com (Include the words CAL AWARDS in the subject line of your email.)
- There is a two-year time period for published works eligibility.
- Only works FIRST published from January 1, 2024, to December 31, 2025 are eligible for entry. Only works that have never been entered before are eligible. Revisions of a work published in a previous year are not eligible.
- All books submitted must be commercially available. (This availability can be on the author's website). You must indicate on the entry form where your entry is available, including a link where applicable.
- Electronic and Physical Submissions You may submit your work electronically once you have created an account on the CAL Awards site and have been verified as a CAL member in good standing (this could take a day or even two). We highly recommend that entries be submitted electronically as PDFs for your own convenience, cost-cutting, and environmental impact, but physical copies can still be submitted, with one exception: Please upload a jpg only for Cover Design.
- If sending physical copies, please include two copies per category entered to:
Jodi Bowersox
3922 Alemeda Circle
Colorado Springs CO 80918
INCLUDE THE CATEGORY ENTERED - If your book is part of a series, take advantage of the ability to upload another pdf called "The Story So far" to give judges a quick overview.
What is ineligible for entry?
- Works written entirely by AI or a ghostwriter are ineligible for submission. See CAL's statement on AI.
- Works that have ONLY been published to the author's own blog are not eligible for entry. Online publication of articles, poems, short stories, and essays must have gone through a submission, review, and acceptance process. All entries must have been published by a source other than the author, illustrator, or designer's own website or blog.
- You must indicate on the entry form where your entry is available, including a link where applicable.
- NEW THIS YEAR: You will be required to upload a picture of yourself with your entry at this time. Please hold it close to your face.
Multiple Entries
- Adult FICTION may be entered in up to two GENRE categories (Mainstream/ Literary is not considered a genre category).
- You may only enter ONE Suspense category. These all have very specific criteria, so enter accordingly.
- Adult NON-FICTION BOOKS may be entered in up to two categories as long as one of the two isn't General Nonfiction.
- Each category entered costs the listed amount.
CAL reserves the right not to confer any award in a given year.
Judges
As always, all judges for the CAL Awards are independent of CAL.
Judges are selected from all over. We pull in teachers, professors, writers, and librarians from across the country, taking care that any judge isn't personally acquainted with an author whose work they will be judging. We also look for people in the fields of book cover design and illustration to judge those specialized categories.
