Seiun Award

A professional work or achievement which appeared for the first time in the previous calendar year may be considered eligible. The eligibility of magazines is determined on its nominal publication date, which often tend to be a month or two ahead of the actual date due to Japanese publication custom.

There are no written rules about word count for literary fiction categories, so that the decision of eligibility in that regard is left up to the voters.

Usually in spring, SFFAN issues candidate lists for reference in each category, which is chosen by the preliminary vote of their member groups. However, voters can cast their ballots for any eligible works outside of the list in the final ballot.

With consideration for voters' availability, a work which appeared on a magazine (such as a part of serialized works or short story) or released on audio-visual media (such as a TV show or film) but wasn't chosen for the candidate lists may be eligible again when it got published as a book or released in any other media.[1]

Though the regulation has no mention about e-publishing, two literary works have won the award: "Umi no Yubi" by Hirotaka Tobi in Best Japanese Short Story 2015, which appeared on a webzine in the eligible year;[3] "Saigo ni shite Saisho no Idol" by Gengen Kusano in the same category 2017 was published as an e-book.[4]