"Clean" in a book award context generally means no explicit sex scenes and no excessive violence, while still allowing for romance, tension, and conflict handled without graphic detail, and it's a real, specific readership, not simply a rating for children's books. Several major franchises make the case that a book can be gripping, bestselling, and entirely clean, and award categories built around this standard exist to help readers who specifically look for that combination find new books.
This is part of The Incipere Book Awards: A Complete Guide for Authors.
For the Incipere Awards' clean subcategory, the guidance is straightforward: no explicit sex scenes, no excessive violence, and generally no profanity or vulgarity, though a lesser word or two can typically be overlooked. Acts that occur off-page, implied but not depicted, are fine. Strong profanity is not.
Clean doesn't mean the absence of romance, conflict, danger, or mature themes. Romance can still carry real tension and emotional stakes; thrillers can still be genuinely tense; fantasy and adventure can still involve real danger and conflict. What changes is how explicitly certain content is depicted, not whether difficult or emotionally significant material appears at all.
Several major franchises illustrate that clean content and commercial success aren't in tension: Harry Potter, The Wheel of Time, the Stormlight Archive, Star Wars novels, The Hunger Games, and the Maze Runner series are all commonly cited as clean or close to it, despite being some of the bestselling fiction of the past several decades. This is worth knowing if you've assumed clean writing is a niche or limiting choice; it's a proven commercial category with real readership.
A meaningful segment of readers specifically seeks out clean content, whether for personal preference, religious or cultural values, or simply a taste for books that don't rely on graphic content to hold interest. A clean-content award category gives these readers a way to identify books that meet that standard without having to research each title individually, and it gives authors writing clean fiction a specific, more targeted recognition than competing in a general category where explicit content is more common.
If you're unsure whether your book fits the clean standard, ask honestly: does it include depicted sex scenes, rather than implied or off-page romance? Does it include graphic or excessive violence? Does it use strong profanity? If the answer to all three is no, your book is likely a reasonable fit for a clean category. If you find yourself needing to justify a borderline scene or two, that's worth weighing carefully before entering.
Picture books, young children's books, children's books, and nonfiction categories don't have a separate clean subcategory in the Incipere Awards, since these categories are either already written for young audiences or don't typically raise the same content questions genre fiction does.
If your book fits, entering the clean subcategory alongside, or instead of, the general genre category is worth considering, both because it's a more specific, targeted recognition and because it speaks directly to a real, engaged readership when you use the award in your marketing afterward.
Think Your Book Qualifies for a Clean Category?
Entry is $65 per category. Early-bird pricing is in effect now.
Generally no explicit sex scenes, no excessive or graphic violence, and minimal to no strong profanity. Implied or off-page romantic content is typically fine.
Yes. Clean doesn't mean the absence of romantic tension, conflict, or danger; it means how explicitly certain content is depicted, not whether meaningful stakes and emotion appear at all.
Not necessarily. Several of the bestselling fiction franchises of recent decades, including Harry Potter and The Hunger Games, are commonly cited as clean or close to it.
Picture books, young children's books, children's books, and nonfiction categories don't have a separate clean subcategory, since they either already target young readers or don't typically raise the same content questions.