15 Open Call Photobook Awards and Prizes
For photobook projects at all stages
Hi,
Welcome to The Open Call List’s fourth paid bonus guide. This guide contains a list of open call photobook awards and publishing prizes.
(View a growing list of all paid bonus guides like this one here.)
What are photobook awards and publishing prizes looking for? And what do they award?
In general, there are two types of open call photobook awards and prizes:
Publishing prizes for unpublished (or minimally published) book projects.
These awards are open calls for photo projects, photobook ideas, books-in-progress, unpublished books, and photobook dummies. (Self-published works in small print runs are sometimes eligible for these prizes as well.)
Publishing prizes like these generally award fully-funded publication with a photobook publisher. The awards cover the cost of design, editing, printing, promotion, and distribution, and the winning artist collaborates with the publisher on the creation of the book. Awards in this category can include additional prizes, such as a funded residency period to work on the book before publication or the opportunity to present the final book at a festival.Awards for recently published photobooks.
Generally, these awards are open to a wide array of published photobooks, including traditionally published books, self-published books, hand-made books, and more. Typically, the sole restriction is that the book must have been published recently (e.g. within the last year, or within the last five years).
Awards for published books typically confer a cash prize, which ranges up to as much as $10,000 or more. Often these awards include additional benefits, such as the book’s inclusion in an exhibition, photobook festival, or photo fair.
This guide includes both types of calls, which means that no matter what point of the photobook-making process you’re at - from ideating to publication - there are opportunities for you here!
Further, all of the calls listed here are annual. So, whether or not they are open at the time of writing, they will be again within the next year.
Please note: Since the organizers often change the website URLs for their prizes each year, in this article I have listed each organizer’s Instagram and website rather than the award page specifically. Typically, Instagram is the best way to stay up-to-date about when each call opens and closes each year, while the website is where submissions are made.
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15 Open Call Photobook Awards and Prizes
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1. Dummy Award
The Dummy Award is an annual international competition for the best unpublished photobook dummies of the year. Each year, 50 books are selected for a shortlist to be exhibited at international photography events. From these, 5 books are awarded publishing prizes.
Award: One winning book dummy receives the PBM/MAS Prize to be produced and published by the leading Turkish photobook printing and binding house, MAS Matbaa, in cooperation with the PhotoBookMuseum, with productions costs fully covered. The other four winning books receive a production grant for printing at MAS Matbaa.
Eligible Projects: Unpublished photobook dummies.
Dummy Award: Website | Instagram
2. Intergalactica’s Open Call
The Intergalactica Open Call is for original, unpublished photobook projects. The call awards both a residency and the fully-funded publication the winning photobook. The awardee uses the residency time to further develop the project for printing, after which the project is published by XYZ Books.
Award: Participation in the XYZ Books Residency Programme in Lisbon, Portugal, for the duration of 1 month, including accommodation and a maximum contribution of 250€ for the flights. Further, the award includes an artist fee of 1,500€, and the selected project is published by XYZ Books, with a print run up to 500 copies, including design, prepress, distribution, press and promotion fully covered. The artist receives 50 copies from the first print run.
Eligible Projects: Any original, unpublished photo projects.