How the National Book Awards Work
What Is the National Book Award?
Established in 1950, the National Book Award is an American literary prize given to writers by writers and administered by the National Book Foundation, a nonprofit organization. A pantheon of such writers as William Faulkner, Marianne Moore, Ralph Ellison, John Cheever, Bernard Malamud, Philip Roth, Robert Lowell, Walker Percy, John Updike, Katherine Anne Porter, Norman Mailer, Lillian Hellman, Elizabeth Bishop, Saul Bellow, Donald Barthelme, Flannery O’Connor, Adrienne Rich, Thomas Pynchon, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Alice Walker, Charles Johnson, E. Annie Proulx, and Colum McCann have all won the Award.
Who Are the Judges?
Each year, the Foundation selects a total of twenty Judges, including five in each of the four Award categories: Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, and Young People’s Literature. Judges are published writers who are known to be doing great work in their genre or field, and in some cases, are past NBA Finalists or Winners. One of the five Judges on each panel is selected as the panel chair. This person acts as the voice of the panel and the liaison to the Foundation. The Foundation staff takes no part in the Judges’ deliberations, except to verify a submission’s eligibility.
Who Can Submit Books?
Each April, the Foundation mails the official National Book Awards guidelines and entry forms (in hard copy only) to the publishers in its master database. Those publishers who do not receive the materials automatically can call or email the Foundation to request a copy. Authors cannot submit their books themselves; they must have their publishers contact us directly. However, the guidelines are always available for informational purposes here: www.nationalbook.org/nbaentry.html.
In order to be eligible for the Award, a book must be written by an American citizen and published by an American publisher between December 1 of the previous year and November 30 of the current year. Self-published books are only eligible if the author/publisher publishes the work of other authors in addition to his own. 
Books published through services such as iUniverse are not eligible for the Award.
Each publisher must mail a completed entry form to the Foundation by June 15. They must then mail one copy of each entered book to the Foundation, as well as one copy to each of the five Judges in the appropriate category, by August 1. The entry fee is $125 per book. The Foundation staff will invoice the publisher for the entry fee once they have verified the submission’s eligibility.
How Are the Finalists Chosen?
Each panel reads all of the books submitted in their category over the course of the summer. This number typically ranges from 150 titles (Poetry) to upwards of 500 titles (Nonfiction). In September, each panel compiles a “shortlist” of five Finalists. They may arrive at these choices using whatever criteria they deem appropriate, as long as they do not conflict with the official Award guidelines.
Each October, the twenty Finalists are announced at a different literary site around the country. Announcers and locations have included John Grisham in William Faulkner’s front yard in Oxford, Mississippi (2005), Lawrence Ferlinghetti at City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco (2006), and Pat Conroy at the Flannery O’Connor Childhood Home in Savannah, Georgia (2010).
How Are the Winners Chosen?
No one, not even the Foundation staff, learns who the Winners are until the day of the National Book Awards Ceremony and Benefit Dinner, which takes place in mid-November in New York City. That afternoon, over lunch, each panel collectively decides who the Winner in their category will be. Often, this decision has been made ahead of time, but occasionally the panel works to come to a consensus until the very last minute. The panel chair announces the Winner at the Ceremony that evening.
What Does the Award Entail?
The night before the Awards, each Finalist receives a prize of $1,000, a medal, and a citation from the panel at a private Medal Ceremony. Immediately following the Medal 
Ceremony, all twenty Finalists read from their nominated books at the Finalists Reading. The four Winners in Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, and Young People’s Literature are announced the following evening at the National Book Awards Ceremony and Benefit Dinner, where each Winner receives $10,000 and a bronze sculpture.
Then What?
Once an author has been a National Book Award Finalist or Winner, he or she becomes a permanent member of the National Book Foundation family. We do our best to keep in touch with both the authors and publishers, promote the authors’ new books and upcoming readings, and invite them to future National Book Award-related events. Check out our Facebook page (National Book Foundation, National Book Awards) and Twitter feed (nationalbook) to see how we continue to support past Winners and Finalists all year round.
Photo credit: William Carlos Williams © Charles Sheeler; Ralph Ellison © George Cserna;Marianne Moore © National Book Foundation Archives; John Updike © W. Earl Snyder;
Alice Walker © L. A. Hyder