National Book Award for Fiction

The National Book Award for Fiction is one of five annual National Book Awards that recognize outstanding literary work by United States citizens. Since 1987, the National Book Foundation has administered and presented the awards, but they are awards "by writers to writers". The judges are five "writers who are known to be doing great work in their genre or field". General fiction was one of four categories when the awards were reestablished in 1950. For several years beginning in 1980, there were multiple fiction categories: hardcover, paperback, first novel or first work of fiction; from 1981 to 1983 hardcover and paperback children's fiction; and in 1980 five awards for mystery fiction, science fiction, and western fiction. When the Foundation celebrated the 60th postwar awards in 2009, all but three of the 77 previous winners in fiction categories were in print.

From the Wikipedia article “National Book Award for Fiction”, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Check the official rules of the National Book Award for Fiction 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.