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 PR and 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.
So if you are an author or know an author who is positively changing lives, you can Nominate it for Goody Business Book Awards here: https://goodybusinessbookawards.com/nominate-book/
