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This is part of an article I penned a few years ago. It might be helpful to you all.

So, will winning a book award help you to sell your books? Firstly, you don’t need to win: You can be longlisted, shortlisted, a finalist, a Red Ribbon winner, Gold, Silver, Bronze medalists. And, yes, any of them can help you to market your book. But only if you see it as a tool in your marketing tool box. For example, when I won the UK People’s Book Prize in 2014, I put it on my author page and I put it on the front cover of all my books. This helped a little. But it helped BIG TIME when I was trying to twist the arms of schools to allow me to visit them and present my literacy workshops to the students there.

In the past, when I sent a message to schools offering to do my workshops, I’d get a response of approx. 1%. But, when I put ‘Winner of The UK People’s Book Prize’ in the box at the top of the message, I got a response of approx. 12%. You see, 99% of readers have no clue how good or bad a literary award is (although The Wishing Shelf Book Awards happens to be very, very good). They simply see ‘Award-Winning Book’ and they think, ‘Oh, it must be good’. In my case, the teachers in the schools see ‘Book Prize Winner’ and think, ‘Oh, he must be good’ and they book me up for a visit.

So, yes, being a finalist or winning a medal in a book award can help you to sell your books, but only if you have a marketing strategy whereby you utilize the win to further that marketing strategy. Let me put it this way, after winning the award I now sell an average of 75 books at every school I visit. Before I won the award, I sold an average 45 books. The difference: I had a marketing strategy and every poster I now send the schools says ‘Winner of the UK People’s Book Prize’ in bold, red letters at the top. And the letter the schools send to parents to tell them a children’s author is visiting, and they can buy a signed book – well, I bet you can guess what it says in big, bold letters at the top.

See winning an award as a tool in your tool box. But it you don’t take the tool out, it’s not going to do you any good.

That’s how winning a book award helped me. But can it help you? For example, what if you write novels for adults and not children? A thriller. A cosy mystery. A cookery book or a book on woodworking.Well, there are lots of ways winning a book award can still help you to market your book.

Firstly, of course, you can add ‘Award-Winning Author’ to the front and back cover of your winning book and, of course, to any future books you might write. There are so many amazing books for readers to pick from. Having ‘Award Winning Author’ on the front cover might just help them to pick yours. If you happen to be doing a booksigning, then have a roller banner produced – they only cost $40 or so – to tell shoppers that you are an ‘Award Winning Author’. It will help.

Don’t forget, winning an award is news. Even a small award. So, tell local newspapers. Local newspapers are often desperate for anything to write. Anything! The other day, the front cover of my local rag was dedicated to a lost swan! Your win might just make the front page too. And, if your book happens to have a local angle to it, all the better. And, of course, don’t forget your Facebook page, your blog and, of course, Amazon. As you probably know, you can access your Author Page through Author Central. There, you can do all sort of things: add a biography, a photo and, of course, tell the prospective readers you won a book award.

A very enjoyable visit to the LBF, promoting the FINALISTS and WINNERS and also promoting the awards with publishers and authors. I also got to say hi to the Duchess of York, Sarah Ferguson, which was fun. She congratulated me on setting up the awards and all the work we do in independent publishing.

Hi everybody, you will find the list of the 2022 WINNERS here: https://www.thewsa.co.uk/winners2022/