Apply for the German Publishing Award

The German Publishing Prize is awarded to book publishers in order to promote the preservation of book culture in Germany.

As an independent publisher, you can be honored with the German Publishing Award if you distinguish yourself through

• a special publishing profile,
• cultural commitment,
• convincing innovative and digital projects,
• professionalism and quality of your publishing work,
• professional distribution,
• careful editing and proofreading,
• promotion of young talent,
• appealing book design,
• wide-reaching and target group-oriented communication and public relations work or socially relevant initiatives and corresponding commitment.

If you receive an award, you can also receive a bonus of up to EUR 60,000 in addition to the seal of approval. The amount of the award depends on the jury's assessment of your performance and your average turnover over the last 3 years:

• Average annual turnover of less than EUR 3 million:
• Seal of approval and bonus of EUR 60,000 for 3 particularly outstanding publishers (top prize)
• Seal of approval and bonus of EUR 24,000 for a further 60 outstanding publishers
• Average annual turnover of EUR 3 million or more:
• Seal of approval without premium for up to 3 outstanding publishers

You submit your application to the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media (BKM).

You are not entitled to an award.

Requirements

You can apply if your publisher is:

• is independent,
• has its headquarters or a branch in Germany,
• has been in existence for at least 3 years and
• has published at least 4 books per year by different authors in the last 3 years (exceptions possible),
• is not in insolvency proceedings,
• has not been awarded a top prize of the German Publishing Award (prize of EUR 60,000) in the last year
• has not been awarded a German Publishing Prize in the last 2 consecutive years and
• is characterized by outstanding achievements

You cannot apply as:

• pure pay publisher or cost price publisher,
• A publishing branch or imprint of a corporate group that generates more than EUR 3 million in total sales per year.
• A publisher that is directly economically dependent on other institutions such as
  
  • museums,
  • universities,
  • literary institutions,
  • political parties,
  • religious institutions, professional organizations or associations.
• Publishing house whose publishing program consists exclusively of periodicals such as newspapers or magazines or of
  
  • encyclopedias,
  • register productions such as address books or form books,
  • music books,
  • maps or other cartographic material,
  • school books, learning and teaching media.

What documents do I need?

• Signed self-commitment form in which you guarantee that you will use the premium received exclusively for the objectives of this prize
• Written confirmation that you have taken note of the information sheet on subsidy fraud
• Signed form of the privacy policy
• Signed form of the declaration of economic capacity