The INSPY Awards

What are the INSPYs…?

The Inspy awards is a program created by bloggers and judged by bloggers to help recognize the best in inspirational fiction. Here is our motto:

We feel nothing compares to excellent faith driven fiction, but it can be difficult to weed through the multitude of books published each year in both the Christian marketplace and the general market to find the very best of them. We found ourselves longing for a way to really bring attention to the books that inspire and move us.
What makes the INSPYs unique among award programs is that we invite nominations from both the Christian booksellers’ domain and the general marketplace. The INSPYs are not about conforming to expectations, they are about faith. Additionally, this program is organized and judged by book bloggers who have considerable experience and knowledge of books published for both the CBA markets and the general market. It is our sincere hope that the INSPYs will serve readers in their search for the very best of faith inspired literature being published today.

Every year, we open nominations to readers – whether you’re a blogger, author or just an avid reader – and welcome nominations from the previous calendar year for about three weeks. Once nominations close, our advisory board gets busy reading your nominations and pars the list down to a five-book short list in each of our seven categories. Here are those categories, which were revised in 2014:

Debut Novel: A debut novel (by a debut author) from any of the categories that is of exemplary literary quality. Unlike other categories, debut novels will be selected and judged by the Advisory Board. Debut novels may also be nominated in their respective categories.

General Fiction: Realistic stories set in historical or contemporary settings that do not have plots with a central romance. This category may include literary and women’s fiction.

Contemporary Romance/Romantic Suspense: The romance category encompasses all romantic contemporary and suspense subgenres, with the exception of speculative romance. In order to be classified as a contemporary romance, the novel must be set in 1960 to the present. The plot must have a central love story that commonly ends in a happily ever after.

Historical Romance: Any novel set prior to 1960 that includes a plot with a central love story usually ending in a happily ever after. May include elements of suspense and includes all subgenres, such as biblical fiction.

Speculative Fiction: A story with fantastical elements (this includes science fiction, fantasy, supernatural fiction, superhero fiction, utopian and dystopian fiction, apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction, magical mysticism and alternate history). Middle grade and up.

Mystery & Thriller: Fast paced, action driven stories or mysteries, usually with a clearly defined hero against an evil villain. Includes cozy mysteries, police procedurals, legal thrillers, detective stories, gothic mysteries, historical mysteries, espionage, suspense, crime fiction, psychological thrillers, medical thrillers, and political thrillers.

Literature for Young Adults: Fiction books of any genre, with the exception of speculative fiction, written with a target audience of 13- to 19-year-olds.

There are exclusions to what you can nominate – for example, we DO NOT except self-published books, so please, be sure to read the book criteria on inspys.com

Here are the posts with more information about the INSPYs.

If you’d like to know more about us, visit us at the INSPYs home page or any of our social media pages on Twitter, Google+ or Facebook. Email; inspyawards(at)gmail(dot)com. We also have a Goodreads page now and would love for you to join us. Plus, if you’re interested in becoming a judge for 2014, we’d LOVE to hear from you – give any of the advisory board members a shout-out and we’ll be happy to keep your information handy and will follow up with you once judging applications open. Thank you for your interest in our program.

THE INSPY AWARDS

– 2017 –

– 2016 –

-2015 –

– 2014 –