Are you an author who put your heart and soul into writing a book, and now you’re wondering if you should submit it to book awards?
If yes, here are the Top 5 Business Book Award Benefits from the Annual Goody Business Book Awards.
With 46 million+ books on Amazon now, you have to get creative with your book promotions and marketing. You want to find unique ways to stand out, including winning book awards. Winning a business book award is even more valuable than becoming a bestselling author on Amazon because there are actual judges who review your book, and select Winners and Finalists.
So in our book, it’s a must for authors to Nominate their book for awards.
To give you more insights, here are the top 5 benefits for authors of winning business book awards:
1. Increase Your Visibility as an Author
Book awards can significantly boost a book’s visibility, and help you reach your niche audience.
For example, you can nominate your book in 1-50 categories for the Goody Business Book Awards in 8 genres: Business, Entrepreneur, Health, Leadership, Money/Wealth, Marketing, Self-Help and Technology.
There is a business book award category for almost every author, and that was done on purpose so your book can be recognized in your area of expertise. For example, if you are a mental health expert who wrote a book about increasing your joy, you might want to nominate it for Health – Psychology category.
2. Enhance Thought Leadership Credibility
There are probably thousands of other experts in your specialty area. If you’re a doctor, lawyer, entrepreneur, or healthcare professional, just think of how many people you’ve met at an industry conference who do things similar to you.
So winning a business book award can elevate your credibility as a thought leader and author. Being recognized as an award-winning author establishes you an authority in your field.
3. Attract More Speaking Engagements
Winning a business book award can also help you attract more speaking engagements. You might get a paid speaking gig or non-paid talk, but in all cases, these opportunities can help you generate multiple streams of income.
If you have an award-winning book, the host of a speaking event is probably more likely to purchase books for the audience and/or let you sell your books and/or services in the back of the room.
4. Secure Major Media Interviews to Maximize Reach
A podcast host asked Goody Business Book Awards and Goody PR Founder Liz H. Kelly whether reporters would be more likely to take a closer look at a bestselling author or award-winner author? Her response immediately was that an award-winning author would stand out more to the media, and it can help them attract top media interviews.
Along with media interviews, award-winning authors may be asked to do partnerships, invited to attend events for free as influencers and attract more social media followers.
5. Increase Book Sales and Revenue with a Business Book Award
By increasing your reach with a business book award, this recognition is also more likely to translate into book sales and revenue for your services. Everyone wants to increase book sales, and nominating your book for awards is a great strategy.
For the Goody Business Book Awards, we’ve seen several of our Winners submit to multiple book awards (which we highly recommend). Several Winners and Finalists have also returned year-after-year to nominate their new books.
And by adding your business book award seal to the book cover, your website, social media, blogs, Amazon page and press releases, it all contributes to your overall book SEO (Search Engine Optimization). The bottom line is that you want to make it easier for your book to stand out and build buzz.
If you’re an author promoting a book, you need to develop book marketing strategies that go way beyond book sales.
To help you build an author brand that is much bigger than your book, Goody Business Book Awards recommends these 3 New Book Marketing Strategies.
As an author, you need to create a book business plan to generate income beyond royalties. Let’s get real. It’s hard to sell books and royalties are now only a few dollars – maybe – per book. So start brainstorming, and think about other ways to generate revenue based on your book.
Have you seen an author movie on The Hallmark Channel that highlights their cross-country book tour and writing career based solely on book sales? The reality is those days are over, unless you are a celebrity, or you hit the lottery with a book(s) that goes viral.
To be really successful as an author today, you want to dig deep into your WHY for writing your book. And then develop book marketing strategies to sustain your goals and dreams as a writer.
1. Include a Thought Leader Plan in Your Book Marketing Strategies
As an expert, you want to be recognized as a thought leader in your niche subject area to attract media interviews, speaking engagements and book sales. And if you’re a doctor, lawyer, therapist, entrepreneur, CEO or speaker, there are literally thousands of other experts in your field, so this is not as easy as it sounds.
One of the best ways to stand out get as a thought leader is to win a book award in your subject area. And with 46 million books on Amazon right now, it is really hard to compete in your genre. So being an award-winning author is a great way to get recognized as a credible expert.
2. Include a Business Plan with Multiple Streams of Income in Your Book Marketing Strategies
In addition to having a strong author brand, your book marketing strategies should include a business plan behind your book that generates multiple streams of income.
Mark Victor Hansen and Jack Canfield, who are the Mega Bestselling Co-Authors of the “Chicken Soup for the Soul” Series that sold 100+ million copies emphasized in book marketing seminars that we attended, “Your book is a business card in the door.”
What they teach is that you always want to leverage your book to generate income way beyond book sales. So think about how can you use your book as a lead generator to sell other services and products, which may include consulting services, a course, a game, or whatever you think your target market needs. And get creative so it’s unique content that draws more eyeballs to your book, website and videos.
3. Identify Ways Your Book is Helping Others in Your Book Marketing Strategies
In addition to becoming a thought leader with a business plan behind your book, your book marketing strategies should include ways that your book is helping others. This step is so important because readers always want to know – What’s In It For Me? (WIIFM).
And if you can improve their life, people will be much more interested in not only buying your book, but they will also be much more like to buy your products and services.
Your message to help others also needs to be sincere and come from the heart. When you have media interviews, people will be able to tell if you mean it. So go for a walk and brainstorm how your words can have a positive impact on others.
You can also select a charity that you want to support, and then add it to your website. For example, we have a loved one on the autism spectrum, so we donate a portion of our how-to book profits for 8-Second PR: New Public Relations Crash Course to autism charities every year.
The Goody Business Book Awards was created to shine a light on authors making a difference with words. Think about the social impact of your book, and then start communicating it everywhere in your book, social media, videos and media interviews.
And as part of your book marketing strategies, consider nominating your book to book awards. Authors, Publicists, Agents, Publishers and even fans can nominate any book for a Goody Business Book Awards in 1-50 categories in 8 genres, including: Business, Entrepreneur, Health, Leadership, Marketing, Money and Wealth, Self-Help, and Technology here.
To celebrate authors and books making a positive impact, the Goody Business Book Awards encourages you to use these 5 new ways to get engaged in World Book Day on Wednesday, April 23, 2025. You can support authors, books and local bookstores by simply recognizing their contributions.
As a global business book awards program for authors, you can Nominate Books published within 5 years to the Goody Business Book Awards. You can select from 1-50 categories in 8 book genres (Business, Entrepreneur, Health, Leadership, Marketing, Money/Wealth, Self-Help and Technology).
“World Book Day was created by UNESCO on 23rd April 1995 as a worldwide celebration of books and reading. It is celebrated all over the world in over 100 countries on 23rd April, but on the first Thursday in March in the UK.
April 23 is observed as World Book Day because several prominent authors were either born or have died on this day, including William Shakespeare (Top Bestselling Author in the world), who died on April 23rd.
So how can you get involved? Try using these 5 New World Book Day Celebrations:
1. Post a Book Review for an Author on World Book Day
It’s really hard to get people to post book reviews on Amazon, and yet they are beyond important for sales and credibility. If you really want to support an author on World Book Day, post a review. And to give the review a higher rank on Amazon, buy the book so it’s a “verified review” and post a photo of it with it.
2. Post Your Favorite Books on Bookworm Wednesday
To help your favorite authors, post about your favorite books on World Book Day. Along with this year’s World Book Day being held on a Wednesday, join us our “Bookworm Wednesday” posts that are for every week. To magnify your posts, you can use our hashtags #BookwormWednesday and #GoodyBusinessBookAwards – and tag us @goodybusinessbookawards, so we will find it and re-share your post.
3. Attend a Book Talk Event and/or Re-Post it on World Book Day
Another way to support authors on World Book Day is either to go to an author event and/or share it on social media with hashtags for the author and their book title. While Hollywood glamorizes author book signings in the movies, it much harder to get someone to attend than you realize. Your support will mean so much to that author, who has put their heart and soul into writing their book.
4. Visit a Local Bookstore and Post a Photo on April 23rd
To cheer local businesses who often support local authors and book talks, go visit your nearest bookstore, and then post about it on social media. In Santa Monica, California, where the Goody Business Book Awards is headquartered, we are beyond grateful to Zibby’s Bookshop for hosting an average of 4 book talks a week! In addition, Barnes and Noble just moved back to the neighborhood and is hosting author events.
5. Start Writing Your Book on World Book Day
Lastly, if you’ve been thinking about writing your own book, and procrastinating, you can take the initiative to start it on World Book Day. While writing a book can be overwhelming, you can start by writing a Table of Contents or outline that can be a great motivator. Think about your personal “WHY for writing that book, ask friends for feedback on what interests them most, and then list your outline in bullets.
Award-Winning Author, Goody Business Book Awards and Goody PR Founder Liz H. Kelly explains, “We believe ‘Every Day is World Book Day’ and want to encourage readers and fans to share their favorite books and authors making a difference on Instagram. And with 46+ million books published on Amazon alone, every author needs your support to shine a light on their work.
Our goal is to shine a light on social impact books. The author’s words may be helping people live longer, build wealth, be a better leader, find great relationships, teach children life lessons, provide success tools for entrepreneurs and small business owners, overcome challenges, inspire and/or endless ways to improve lives.
Goody Business Book Awards – 2025 Nomination and Awards Timeline:
October 1, 2024 – September 30, 2025 – Nominate your Books
November 15, 2025 – Award Winning Authors Announced
November 15 – December 31, 2025 & Beyond – Promote Award-Winning Authors
To shine a light on authors making a difference with words, 100+ Award-Winning Authors (50 Winners and 50 Finalists) will be announced by the Goody Business Book Awards on November 15, 2025. These Winners and Finalists can promote their book award on their front cover, website, social media, blogs – and even distribute a press release announcing the news!
Word-of-mouth marketing is probably the number one way that people find out about books, so your World Book Day posts are beyond important.
To honor book geeks who truly love to read books, the Goody Business Book Awards announces a new Bookworm Wednesday with 3 ways to celebrate authors each week online.
Authors, publishers, agents, publicists, and fans are encouraged to participate by sharing their book passions and favorite authors using the hashtags #BookWormWednesday and #GoodyBusinessBookAwards.
In addition to participating in Bookworm Wednesday, you canNominate Your Bookpublished to this annual book awards program that has 50 categories in 8 genres (business, entrepreneur, health, leadership, marketing, money/wealth, self-help, and technology). Any book published within 5 years is eligible.
Goody Business Book Awards was created by Award-Winning Author Liz H. Kelly, who promotes authors via her Goody PR agency. She grew up in a house with a bookworm mother and explains, “Our mother taught English at our high school for decades, including teaching us. She loves to read more than anyone I know, and averages reading a new book a week.”
So whether you read a book a week, a month or a year, here are 3 ways you can participate in our new Bookworm Wednesday:
1. Encourage others to read by sharing WHY you love to read so much on Bookworm Wednesday.
If you are truly a book lover, you read as a part of your everyday life. Instead of spending hours watching re-runs on TV, you find quality time to read and learn new skills that advance your life and/or simply entertain with a compelling story.
In “Success Principles: How to Get from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be” by Jack Canfield, co-creator of the bestselling “Chicken Soup for the Soul” series”, shares his five “Big Ideas”.
In this book, Jack Canfield emphasizes, “You can lose the material things, but you can never lose your mastery—what you learn and who you become in the process of achieving your goals.”
And this benefit is WHY we love to read self-help books to learn and move forward, started the Goody Business Book Awards, promote authors, and created our new Bookworm Wednesday.
If you are looking for answers on how to be a better leader, start a business, build wealth, strengthen relationships, eat healthier, live longer, be a better marketer and/or help you fulfill your life dream, chances are very good that someone has written a book to help you.
2. Share your Favorite Books, and how they have changed your life on Bookworm Wednesday.
Do you remember reading a book that has been invaluable to your life? Do you have favorite books that you’re read more than once?
As a book geek, one of our life-changing reads has been “Sales Dogs: You Don’t Have to Be an Attack Dog to Explode Your Income” by Blair Singer.
In this invaluable book, the author explains how you can build relationships and sell using five different types of dog analogies. For example, you may be a Golden Retriever who closes sales based on trust, loyalty and relationships versus being a Bull Dog who aggressively makes cold calls all day. This book teaches you how to overcome objections by playing to your strengths with five-revenue generating skills.
3. Explain how a specific book entertained you for hours.
Can you think of a favorite book that you couldn’t put down? Have you ever continued reading a book at 2:00am because you just couldn’t wait to read what happens next? If yes, please post it on our Bookworm Wednesday on your social media channels.
One of our favorite all-time books is “The Church of Baseball: The Making of Bull Durham: Home Runs, Bad Calls, Crazy Fights, Big Swings, and a Hit” by the Director and Writer Ron Shelton.
This entertaining book is about the backstory behind making one of the most famous baseball movies in history that starred Kevin Costner, Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon.
And while “Bull Durham” won many awards in 1988 for this romantic comedy sports film, Shelton uncovers these untold behind-the-scenes stories in this 2022 book. If you loved this classic, you’ll love the stories about how the award-winning director struggled to get this movie made and resolved cast conflicts.
When all goes sideways with the film, Shelton explains how he was able to save one of the most popular minor league baseball movies in history using his dry sense of humor, wit and help from Kevin Costner pitching it to investors that makes this mega bestselling book a page-turner.
So join us on Bookworm Wednesday each week by sharing your love for reading books, favorite books and stories about how a book has helped you.
Please post your favorite books, favorite authors, your WHY for reading books, and/or how a book changed your life on Bookworm Wednesday using #BookwormWednesday and #GoodyBusinessBookAwards. AND tag @GoodyBusinessBookAwards so we can re-share your post.
And if you or someone you know wrote a book that is positively helping others, you can Nominate Books for Goody Business Book Awards here using our easy 3-step process: https://goodybusinessbookawards.com/nominate-book/
To help authors receive recognition, Goody Business Book Awards and Goody PR Founder Liz H. Kelly was interviewed by Hembury Books Podcast and Book Publisher Jessica Mudditt in 2025 about their program’s origin story, WHY, and mission to “uplift author voices”. Below are some of the highlights from this interview transcript with insights for how authors can win and benefit by winning book awards.
Host Jessica Mudditt:
Welcome to the Hembury Books Podcast. Today, my guest is Liz Kelly, who is the founder and CEO of Goody PRand the Goody Business Book Awards. She is the award-winning author of “8-Second PR: New Public Relations Crash Course”, and a podcast host whose mission is to magnify good. As the author of three books, Kelly knows how hard it is to promote them. After submitting many Goody PR clients for book awards, Kelly noticed few programs recognized 100% social impact authors. As a result, Kelly started the Goody Business Book Awards in 2022. Thanks a lot for coming on the podcast, Liz.
Liz Kelly:
Well, thank you so much, Jessica. I’m really honored to be here and speak to a book publisher. We have a lot of authors who have submitted their book and won awards from Australia, so it’s wonderful to say hello to everybody down there and everybody in Sydney.
Host Jessica Mudditt:
Great. This is an award-winning book called “My Father’s Suitcase” by Mary Garden. She won your Self-Help Memoir category, and I remember her post the morning that she found out that she had won, and it was just so wonderful. And she’s not a Hembury Books author, but a friend who I’ve had on our podcast. She has written a beautiful book that I think is really brave and has a real social good purpose. So I leapt at the chance to have you on the podcast. Could you tell people a bit more about what prompted you to launch the awards in 2022?
Liz Kelly:
Absolutely. Well, I had submitted a lot of authors to book awards, and I submitted my own book, the “8-Second PR: New Public Relations Crash Course”. So I had been on both sides as the publicist submitting the client and then as an author submitting my own book for awards. And as a marketer and somebody who likes to magnify good, I thought, “Okay, how can I put this all together and put together a better program that has an up-to-date website and brand?”
So we went all in and built a new book awards brand with a hot air balloon logo. And the hot air balloon idea came from uplifting author voices above the rest, because they’re 46 million books, probably more on Amazon right now.
Host Jessica Mudditt:
So did you feel that the awards that existed were measuring the worth of a book with different criteria, and none of that ever included the social good? What kinds of things?
Liz Kelly:
Great question. There are a lot of book awards with a social good category, but there were none that were 100% social good….When authors nominate their book, we ask,” How is your book making a difference?”
And when we work with authors as a clients, Goody PR authors, that’s our first question. And if they are not helping other people, for example, it’s a fantasy story, it’s really hard for us to do the PR, because the media, they want to know how is your book helping people. So it really was in alignment with everything we do to focus on social impact.
Host Jessica Mudditt:
Could you please tell viewers about the Goody Business Book Awards? There are 50 categories, so it’s very large. Were you quick to get to 50 categories?
Liz Kelly:
We were quick to get to 50 categories, but after the first year, we changed half the categories. We learned what was popular and what wasn’t. For example, Self-Help Memoir, Mary Garden’s book, that was the most popular category. So we thought, “Okay, how do we expand this so we can recognize more people who’ve written to tell their own story?” We added categories like Autobiography and Self-Help Inspiration to expand their options.
Host Jessica Mudditt:
And they do have business in the title, but, because one of my authors said, “Oh, my book’s not business, it is self-help”?
Liz Kelly:
Yes. As a marketer, we wanted to focus on a niche area. And if we just did Goody Book Awards, it’s too broad. And it’s worked. In 2023, we got written up as one of the top 8 business book awards by Write Business Results, and they’re based out of the UK, and we were honored to be on their list. And if we were just this one big broad book awards, we would not have gotten that recognition.
Host Jessica Mudditt:
Yeah, makes a lot of sense. As a book publisher, I hear you loud and clear because words are powerful. And it is the same reason why Hembury Books is a hybrid publisher.
And people inside the publishing industry would say, “Well, technically you’re not because your authors keep 100% of their royalties, it’s not a share.” But I say hybrid is a very positive word, and people understand that concept on a broader level….And I want to be upfront that we are different, we’re not a traditional publisher.
So I wondered if you could just tell an author who would love to enter, the important things they need to know about eligibility, when judging starts, costs, those kinds of things.
Liz Kelly:
Sure, any book is eligible that’s been published within five years, and can be nominated by an author, book publisher, agent, publicist and even by fans. We made it five years because we wanted to honor many authors and good books.
And then it’s an easy 3-step process on our website to Nominate Your Book. You upload your book, cover jpeg, and then explain how is the book helping people. That’s a really important question because that’s the first thing our judges look at. And then if you win, that is what gets published on our website.
The nominations open October 1st, and then they end September 30th. We go through six weeks of judging, and then the winners are announced by November 15th, just in time for the holiday book sales, and people can say, “Oh, I’m an award-winning author,” and we promote the heck out of all the authors.
Host Jessica Mudditt:
Amazing, I love it. In fact, the reason that this podcast is made possible, is because I condensed Mary’s knowledge and another author, Mark Berridge (“A Fraction Stronger”), about awards and book review sites, into a blog post. And your team found it and created a really cool, beautifully branded post on Instagram @goodybusinessbookawards. And I was sharing the link and I was so delighted that I reached out to your team, and that led to this podcast interview. And that’s never happened on a blog post before. So I do feel you are amplifying everybody as a positive, it’s a collective positive, which is wonderful. How many entries did you get last year?
Liz Kelly:
Great question. We’ve been growing a lot each year. So last year we had over 500 entries, and many nominations from their book publisher. And so it’s really been growing, and there’s been a lot of buzz. And it’s interesting that you bring it up, that you found us through one of our social media posts because we do strategy calls, and decided to promote other achievements of our award-winning authors (Winners and Finalists). We also love to work with anyone who is a literary agent, publicist or book publisher like you.
Host Jessica Mudditt:
That is so great. What are your thoughts with all your expertise in PR, on the power of a book becoming an award-winning book to sell more copies?
Liz Kelly:
Well, I love that question…I really think award-winning author now stands out more than best-selling author to a reporter, because it’s way too easy to become a best-selling author on Amazon.
It’s great, congratulations if that happened to you, but I found it was way too easy by just telling everybody to buy my book on the same day. So if you submit your book to book awards, we actually have judges that are actually reading your book and comparing it to others.
And so you are getting carefully selected as, “Hey, this is a great book.” And I think the media is figuring that out. I think it also stands out more to people who may be scrolling through social media, when they see these awards. And PS, we tell people, “Don’t just apply to our program, apply to multiple ones” because we want you to increase your chances of being recognized.
Host Jessica Mudditt:
Absolutely. Apart from selling copies, making your book publisher happy, and the glory, are there some other benefits of having an award-winning book, that happens to authors?
Liz Kelly:
Well, I think one thing, we encourage authors to promote their book awards everywhere. You can put the Goody Business Book Awards seal on your book cover, your Amazon page, your website, and share it on LinkedIn. I also think it sounds good as a title to say you are an “Award-Winning Author” on all your social media, and there’s just a lot of pride. So there’s a huge digital marketing opportunity, huge sales opportunity, and it increases your credibility.
Host Jessica Mudditt:
It certainly does. I mean, the credibility of having authored a book is high, then winning an award is higher still. The future opportunities it generates professionally, I’m sure are enormous. And I think also that recognition, a book is a lot of work over a sustained period, it’s deeply intellectual. And as a book publisher, I think to get formal recognition, that must be an amazing feeling for you as a person. Talk about confidence in your ideas and how you express them.
Liz Kelly:
Well, that’s such a good point. So many writers are sitting at home with our computer. And as an author, we’re not really sure whether our book is going to resonate with people. And then you get reviews on Amazon and Goodreads and other places, which is great feedback, but it’s not the same as getting a judge to say, “This is the book that stood out in this category and this is the best book.” So it’s really rewarding to get that.
And I totally agree, books are hard to write. It’s not an easy thing to write a book, and then get a book publisher or publish it. And a lot of people, it’s their life story and life work. And so to be recognized for that work I think is really important, versus just an Amazon algorithm saying, “You’re the best-selling book today, for an hour.”
Host Jessica Mudditt:
Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. Can we talk prizes if an author wins? Do you give them the assets and things to go on their books?
Liz Kelly:
Yes. Our winners, the Winners and the Finalists, win the lottery in terms of getting a digital media marketing campaign to promote them. Because we do everything from video, to press release, to blogs. And then we do send them the assets. We send the author, agent, publicist and book publisher the award seals, and then we also send custom banners that they can share.
And I’ve had other people say that they’ve applied to other awards programs and they don’t do half of what we do to promote our award-winning authors. So we really go above and beyond, and I think it’s just because we’re a PR agency and sincerely want to “uplift author voices”.
Host Jessica Mudditt:
Okay. Liz, thank you so much for spending time with us and sharing all those amazing insights with our listeners and book publisher clients. For authors, getting this behind the scenes glance by the person who started the Goody Business Book Awards, is amazing. So thank you very much. Wonderful.
