General Information
The 2025 Crown Awards (Debut, Gold and Non-Fiction) are for full length books published for the first time in English in the UK between the 1 April 2024 – 31 March 2025. For fiction, the bulk of the narrative of the work submitted must take place at least thirty-five years prior to publication. For non-fiction, the key events must have taken place, or the subject primarily active at least thirty-five years prior to publication.
Awards Timeline
Nominations close: 30 April 2025 (Judges may call in titles after this date via the chairs of their judging panel or the Chair of the HWA). Longlists announced: 17 September 2025 Shortlists announced: 15 October 2025 Awards made: 19 November 2025
Entering the HWA Crowns
Nominations for each title must be entered via the website form on historicalwriters.org unless called in by the judges. If you have any problems with the form, or feel your information cannot be entered please email the chair (chair@historicalwriters.org). Please submit any title for one award only. See below for notes on the Debut Crown eligibility.
Submission Fee
There is a submission fee of £35 per title. Please pay promptly on receiving your invoice. It is the publisher’s responsibility to ensure that all payments are received by the HWA in a timely fashion. There are no further charges for long or shortlisted books.
Submission Dates
The deadline for submitting a title for any of the Crown Awards is the 30 April 2025.
Delivery of Books
Publishers are asked to send books to the judges as promptly as possible on receipt of their postal addresses (and / or emails where epub/PDF copies are requested). The relevant addresses will be send to publishers towards the end of the submission period after invoices are raised. Failure to send the books to judges in a timely fashion may result in a book being dropped from the list of submissions. The HWA will make all reasonable attempts to chase books which have not been sent or delivered, but the final responsibility for making sure the books reach the judges rests with the publisher or the person submitting the title for the award if that is not the publisher.
In case of hard copies, please use Royal Mail to deliver books where possible, as it can be hard for judges to rearrange deliveries of missed packages with other couriers.
Eligibility
The 2025 Crown Awards (Debut, Gold and Non-Fiction) are for full length books published for the first time in English in the UK between the 1 April 2024 – 31st March 2025. For fiction, the bulk of the narrative of the work submitted must take place at least thirty-five years previous to publication. For non-fiction, the key events must have taken place, or the subject primarily active at least thirty-five years previous to publication.
Any UK print publisher may enter books provided that the book is relevant to the appropriate award, as defined under Eligibility, and the first UK edition was published within the specified dates of the Judging Period. Translations are welcome.
A publisher may submit one title per author.
We must point out that is unlikely that books that have not been professionally published by recognised publishing houses and independent presses will reach the long or shortlists, and the HWA reserves the right to turn down submissions which are poorly published. Self authors, and authors submitting their own work should be aware they will, if accepted, be asked to send out multiple copies of their work.
All books must have been published in a physical format, or be due to be published in a physical format within a year of initial publication. Titles that have only been published electronically are not eligible. Publication date, for purposes of the Crown Awards is deemed to be first publication, so digital publication in the case of digital first works.
HWA Debut Crown
The Debut Crown Award is for the best (as decided by our judging panel) first novel-length work of fiction commercially published by the author in the UK in English during the judging period. Authors who have previously published only non-fiction or short stories are eligible for this award. Authors who have previously commercially published full-length novels under a different name are not eligible, and we advise their entries are submitted for the Gold Crown. Previously published authors of Young Adult fiction (where the MS exceeds 40K words) are also advised to submit for the Gold Crown. For authors who have been commercially published in other languages, please email the chair@historicalwriters.org for any clarification or advice. We welcome excellence across all sub-genres of historical fiction.
HWA Gold Crown
This award is for the best historical novel (as decided by our judging panel) first published, in any format, in the UK in English during the judging period. Translations, as long as they are first published in English in the UK during the judging period, are welcome. We welcome excellence across all sub-genres of historical fiction.
HWA Non-Fiction Crown
This award is for the best (as decided by our judging panel) non-fiction work first published in the UK in English during the judging period. Translations, as long as they were first published in English during the judging period, are welcome. Biography is welcome. Academic texts aimed at a specialised audience are unlikely to reach the longlist.
Publicity
It is an condition of entry that publishers make all reasonable endeavours to:
Put the HWA logo and ‘’Winner/Shortlisted for the HWA [insert name] Crown’’ as appropriate on the cover of subsequent editions of winning/shortlisted books.
Ensure that any shortlisted author is available for a written interview with Historia in the run up to the awards, attends the Awards Ceremony (19 November 2025, Central London), and will be available for interviews immediately afterwards and/or on the following morning.
Provide a cover image and author photograph with the necessary clearances for use on the HWA web sites and any printed materials promoting the Awards.
Submission of any entry will be taken as complete acceptance of these conditions.
Winners
The winners will be announced on 19 November 2025.
We plan to hold the ceremony in Central London.
Queries should be addressed to: chair@historicalwriters.org