Book submissions for the 2026 Texas Book Festival are now closed. Please check this page in January 2027 for next year’s Texas Book Festival submission process.
Submissions for the 2026 Festival were open from Friday, January 9 through Friday, May 1, 2026. Please carefully review the instructions and FAQs below for the 2026 submissions guidelines. For additional details on the 2026 book evaluation process, read the letter from TBF Literary Director, Hannah Gabel, below.
We have become aware of multiple scam attempts wherein authors and vendors are being invited to participate in the Texas Book Festival for a fee. These communications are fraudulent and not affiliated with Texas Book Festival.
Texas Book Festival does not charge featured authors to participate in the official Festival program. Vendor applications are always submitted directly through the official texasbookfestival.org website. Vendor payment is always requested from TBF staffers using an official @texasbookfestival.org email address and invoiced through the secure Stripe platform. Payment will never be requested via alternative platforms, such as Zelle, Cash App, PayPal, wire transfer, gift cards, or other unofficial payment methods.
Communications from official Texas Book Festival staff will always end in @texasbookfestival.org. Any email addresses not ending with this domain are unofficial and not affiliated with Texas Book Festival.
For example:
[email protected] > SCAM
[email protected] > SCAM
[email protected] > LEGIT
[email protected] > LEGIT
[name]@texasbookfestival.org > LEGIT
While exhibitors, including publishing houses, are allowed to feature their authors at their assigned space throughout the Festival weekend, it is against Texas Book Festival’s exhibitor policy to resell or sublet any space allotted to an exhibitor, including to authors who are asked to pay to be featured at their booth.
If you have been contacted by anyone requesting money to participate in the Festival or who you believe to be engaging in fraudulent behavior, please do not engage, click on links, or submit any form of payment. Let us know by emailing [email protected].
Thank you,
The Texas Book Festival Team
The Texas Book Festival is scheduled to take place in downtown Austin on Saturday and Sunday, November 14–15, 2026.
When evaluating submissions, we consider not only a book’s literary merit but also genre, audience, and how each title may fit within a balanced lineup. We consider frontlist titles published in the 12 months leading up to the Festival (November 2025-November 2026).
Our final author lineup will consist of 250–300 authors from Texas and beyond. All selected authors will participate in at least one Festival session. Most sessions are panel conversations between two or three authors and a moderator. The Festival does not feature authors for book signings only and opportunities for solo-author sessions are limited.
If you are interested in an exhibitor booth and/or your book does not fit the guidelines listed below, we welcome you to view information about our Exhibitor applications here. Festival Exhibitors pay a fee for an exhibitor booth in our Exhibitor Tents; some authors buy exhibitor booths so they can sell their own books and market their work to Festival-goers. The 2026 Exhibitor application will be available in late January or early February.
Submission Requirements
To be considered for the Festival, the following must be submitted.
- Two (2) physical copies of a finished book, galley, or ARC shipped to the TBF office. Alternatively, if finished books are not yet ready, you may upload a PDF copy of your book at the end of the online form.
- A completed online submission form. After reading the information and FAQs, use the form below to officially submit a title for Festival consideration.
If finished copies are available, please send two physical copies of each submitted title to our office:
Texas Book Festival, ATTN: Submissions, 1023 Springdale Road, Building 14, Suite B, Austin, TX 78721
Submissions are not considered complete until we have received all required materials. Incomplete submissions will not be eligible for Festival inclusion.
- Completed submissions must be received by May 1, 2026.
- Submitted materials will not be returned.
To be considered, books must be published in the 12 months prior to the Festival (between November 2025 and November 2026). We prioritize frontlist hardcovers and paperback originals published in 2026. We do not consider books that are only available in digital or audio formats.
Each year we aim to engage audiences of all ages through the curation of a diverse, vibrant, and balanced lineup that includes books/authors across genres. When evaluating submissions, we consider not only a book’s literary merit but also where the title may fit within our overall programming. The FAQ below identifies the specific categories and genres we consider.
Invitations are sent by our Literary Director and Director of Youth Programs throughout the spring and summer. We will publicly announce our complete author lineup in September.
Due to the large volume of submissions we receive, we may be unable to reply to each submission and inquiry individually, though we aim to send responses to all submissions prior to our full lineup reveal in September.
FAQs
We aim to provide a diverse mix of literature from the following genres:
- Titles with a Texas focus and books written by Texas authors
- Art and photography
- Children’s and young adult literature, including picture books and chapter books
- Cookbooks and food-related literature
- Fiction—all genres
- Graphic novels
- Narrative nonfiction—biography and memoir, essays, history, social and political science, long-form journalism, climate and environment, science and technology, film and television, sports, and music. We consider nonfiction books from a variety of author perspectives so long as they engage in fair and respectful discussions of history, figures, and ideas.
- Poetry
Texas Book Festival focuses on the promotion of literature, ideas, and literary culture. Books on the topics of self-improvement, how-to/instructional guides, books focused primarily on business management and leadership, devotionals, and books solely of academic or religious interest will not be considered. We do not consider books that use art (including cover art) and/or written content created by artificial intelligence (AI). At this time we do not consider books available only in e-book or audio format. We do not consider books by anyone under 18. If you are unsure whether your book falls into one of these categories, please email us at [email protected].
Self-published titles that meet the below criteria will be considered and evaluated the same as traditionally published books.
- The title is bound and printed copies are (or will be) available for purchase from a distributor in the United States outside of Amazon.
- The book has been edited, copyedited, and proofread by professional, experienced editors.
- The book has been professionally designed.
- The book has, or will have upon publication, an EAN barcode, an ISBN, and an LCCN number on the copyright page.
Questions?
If you have a question not addressed above, please email [email protected].