Azbee Awards: Eligibility & Rules

Please review these eligibility requirements and submission rules before entering the Azbee Awards of Excellence competition.

Eligibility Requirements:

1. The Azbee Awards of Excellence competition is open to any English-language, U.S.-based puclication whose content is business-to-business (B2B) oriented, its editorial an design staff, and freelancers.
   • B2B media includes business, trade, association and professional publications that cover a specific industry and serve the industry's professionals with a focus on education and skill improvement.
   • For eligibility purposes, "publication" refers to the overall brand, not individual issues, posts, products or iterations of that published brand. Publications must be updated or published quarterly at minimum, and products can include print or digital magazines, journals, newspapers, websites, email newsletters, podcasts, etc.
2. All entries must have an original issue or post date in 2025. Entries must have been issued, published, posted, or emailed between Jan. 1, 2025, and Dec. 31, 2025.
   • If your issue has a cover date of 2025/2026, you may enter it in the current competition only if it was mailed in 2025.
   • Issues with cover dates of January 2026 or Winter 2026 are not eligible in the current competition.
   • For the Publication Redesign category only: If the first issue of your redesigned publication is the January 2025 issue, a publication date from late 2024 is acceptable for the issue immediately preceeding the redesign. We will not accept 2024 or 2026 publication dates for the first issue of the redesign.
3. ASBPE membership is not required, but members receive steep discounts on entry fees. ASBPE is the professional association for B2B media professionals. Individuals can apply for membership, and companies can apply for corporate membership. In order to receive the $100 per entry member discount and the additional $20 per entry freelancer discount on Azbee Awards submissions, each entrant must be an ASBPE member and use their ASBPE.org username and password to log in to the awards system.
4. Media submitted for all categories should come from independent B2B publications focused on serving businesses and professionals in their specific industry or segment. Content should be focused on news, education and skill improvement fo rthe audience's professions and businesses in some way. Sponsored content and articles written by subject matter experts from an advertiser — where the editorial staff retains complete control over the material — may be submitted so long as they are properly labeled. However, "advertorials" or custom advertising vehicles that present advertising as editorial cannot be submitted into the Azbee Awards competition. ASBPE reserves the right to reject entries that do not meeting the eligibility criteria without a refund.
5. Persons submitting entries represent that they have the right to do so on behalf of themselves or their organization and that doing so does not violate the rights of any third party, that each entry is an original work and does not infringe upon the intellectual property or other rights of any third party, and that the entrant or the entrant's organization will defend and indemnify ASBPE against claims brought by third parties arising out of ASBPE's use of entry. 
6. Each entrant grants to ASBPE a perpetual, worldwide, royalty-free, irrevocable right and license to utilize the entry in the Azbee Awards competition, to display all or any portion of any winning entry at any awards ceremony or in any promotional materials for the competition, and to include, at ASBPE's sole and exclusive discretion, all or any portion of any winning entry in a published (in digital or other format) compendium of Azbee Award winning entries.

Submission Rules:

1. ALL entries must be completed via ASBPE's online entry system. 
   • All entries require PDF uploads and/or URLs.
   • The Magazine of the Year category requires hard copies to be mailed to ASBPE after the entry is submitted online.
   • URLs must be hosted on the publication's own site. We cannot accept URLs to PDFs or other files hosted on Dropbox, Google Drive or similar sites due to the potential for cybersecurity risk for our awards committee, judges and site guests.
   • Entry fees listed are per each single entry.
2. Entries improperly submitted may be rejected. Reasons for rejection include, but are not limited to, not following instructions, not providing requested information and materials (including username/passwords where applicable), or submitting an entry in the wrong category. Entry fees are non-refundable.
   • At the discretion of the judges and awards committee, entries may be moved to other categories to maintain eligibility. ASBPE reserves the right to move an entry from one category to another when appropriate. While we cannot always inform the entrant in advance, because of time constraints, entrants are generally notified within a few business days of the committee's decision to move an entry. Committee and judge decisions are final.
3. The Azbee Awards Payment & Refund Policy covers our early-bird, member and freelancer discounts, as well as payment, entry updates, entry review and refunds. If you have any questions about our policy, please reach out through our contact form.
4. Entrants may submit the same material in up to three categories.
   • Do not submit the same material more than once in a given category.
   • Entries submitted to an All Content division category may provide both versions (print and web) in their entry.
   • Components of submissions to Overall Excellence division categories may also be submitted to another category.
5. Some categories limit the number of entries per publication brand or per author. Outside of those categories, there is no limit to the number of unique entries in a given category.
   • The following categories allow only one entry per publication brand: Magazine of the Year, Digital Magazine of the Year, Website of the Year, Social Media Account of the Year, Editor's Letter or Note, Overall Headline Writing, Publication Design, Publication Redesign, Website Design, Industry News Coverage, and State of the Industry (both Print & Online divisions).
   • The Email Newsletter of the Year and Email Newsletter Design categories generally allow only one submission per publication brand, unless your publication has more than one newsletter product. Then, you must submit these as separate entries. Submissions that include editions from more than one newsletter product will be disqualified.
   • The Regular Column, Thought Leadership and Best Body of Work categories allow only one entry per author. Publications can submit multiple entries to these categories so long as they are from different authors.
   • The Regular Department category allows only one entry per department.
6. If a password is required to access all or part of an entry, the entrant must provide a username and password to judges that will remain active until June 30, 2026. There is a field to provide this information on the entry form.
7. Use of Stock Images and Generative AI:
   • Entries may use stock images, however stock images must be declared in the entry essay. Entrants must also ensure, per our eligibility requirements, that they have purchased the stock image and are not violating intellectual property rights in its use.
     • The Best Original Photo and Best Originall Illustration categories do not allow the use of stock images by nature of the category, and any submissions to these categories using stock images will be disqualified.
     • The Best Original Photo Illustration category allows stock images only as a base image to which alterations and manipulations have been applied; any submission to this category using stock images without further alteration will be disqualified.
   • Entries may generally utilize AI-generated images, however the portions that were created using AI must be declared in the entry essay, and the submission cannot be created entirely through the use of generative AI tools. The Azbee Awards require human skill to be applied beyond the use of genAI tools.
     • The Best Original Photo, Best Original Illustration and Best Original Photo Illustration categories do not allow the use of generative AI by the nature of the category, and any submissions to these categories using generative AI will be disqualified.
   • Generative AI use in editorial: ASBPE understands that generative AI tools are used to help develop story ideas, generate interview questions, generate summaries and for other uses that save time for writers and editors. However, ASBPE believes that AI should be used only as a time-saving tool, and should never replace journalistic scrutiny and oversight by human writers and editors. By submitting editorial content to the Azbee Awards, the entrant certifies that all information has been verified, is largely written by a human, and has been subject to human editing.
8. See our Entrant FAQs for further details on payments, notifications, submission, category and judging questions.

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