Gandalf Award

The Gandalf Awards, honoring achievement in fantasy literature, were conferred by the World Science Fiction Society annually from 1974 to 1981. They were named after Gandalf the wizard, from the Middle-earth stories by J. R. R. Tolkien. The award was created and sponsored by Lin Carter and the Swordsmen and Sorcerers' Guild of America (SAGA), an association of fantasy writers. Recipients were selected by vote of participants in the World Science Fiction Conventions according to procedures of the Hugo Awards. The award was given for life achievement, and corresponds roughly to the World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement, which was started the year after the Gandalf. In 1978 and 1979, an award was also given for a novel published during the preceding year. With the collapse of Carter's health in the 1980s the Gandalf award went into abeyance.

From the Wikipedia article “Gandalf Award”, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Check the official rules of the Gandalf Award for the current eligibility window, accepted formats, residency or language requirements and any entry fee. For most established prizes the publisher submits on the author's behalf, often with a limit on entries per imprint.

If you are self-published, look for an explicit statement that independently published books are accepted, and budget for entry fees and copies for judges.