text: nebula award the nebula awards annually recognize the best works of science fiction or fantasy published in the united states during the previous year . the awards are organized and awarded by the science fiction and fantasy writers of america ( sfwa ) , a nonprofit association of professional science fiction and fantasy writers . they were first given in 1966 at a ceremony created for the awards , and are given in four categories for different lengths of literary works . a fifth category for film and television episode scripts was given 1974 – 78 and 2000 – 09 . the rules governing the nebula awards have changed several times during the awards ' history , most recently in 2010 . the nebula awards have been termed as one of " the most important of the american science fiction awards " . winning works have been published in special collections , and winners and nominees are often noted as such on the books ' cover . sfwa numbers the awards by the year prior to the year the award is given in ; the 2012 awards were presented in san jose , california on may 18 , 2013 . for lists of winners and nominees for each nebula category , see the list of categories below . award the nebula awards are given each year by the science fiction and fantasy writers of america ( sfwa ) for the best science fiction or fantasy fiction published in the united states during the previous year . the winner receives a trophy but no cash prize ; the trophy is a transparent block with an embedded glitter spiral nebula and gemstones cut to resemble planets . the trophy itself was designed for the first awards by j. a. lawrence , based on a sketch by kate wilhelm , and has remained the same ever since . works are eligible for an award if they were published in english in the prior calendar year . there are no written rules as to which works qualify as science fiction or fantasy , and the decision of eligibility in that regard is left up to the nominators and voters , rather than to sfwa . nebula award nominees and winners are chosen by members of the sfwa , though the authors of the nominees do not need to be members . works are nominated each year between november 15 and february 15 by published authors who are members of the organization , and the six works that receive the most nominations then form the final ballot , with additional nominees possible in the case of ties . members may then vote on the ballot throughout march , and the final results are presented at the nebula awards ceremony in may . authors are not permitted to nominate their own works , though they can decline nominations , and ties in the final vote are broken , if possible , by the number of nominations the works received . history the first nebulas were given in 1966 , for works published in 1965 . the idea for such an award , funded by the sales of anthologies collecting the winning works , was proposed by sfwa secretary - treasurer lloyd , jr. in 1965 . the idea was based on the edgar awards , presented by the mystery writers of america , and hosting a ceremony to present them at was prompted by the edgar and hugo awards . the initial ceremony consisted of four literary awards , for novels , novellas , novelettes , and short stories , which have been presented every year since . a script award was also presented from 1974 to 1978 under the names best dramatic presentation and best dramatic writing and again from 2000 through 2009 as best script , but after 2009 it was again removed and replaced by sfwa with the ray bradbury award . prior to 2009 , the nebula awards employed a rolling eligibility system . each work was eligible to qualify for the ballot for one year following its date of publication . as a consequence of rolling eligibility , there was the possibility for works to be nominated in the calendar year after their publication and then be awarded in the calendar year after that . works were added to a preliminary list for the year if they had ten or more nominations , which were then voted on to create the final ballot . in 1970 , the option was added for voters to select " no award " if they felt that no nominated work was worthy of winning ; this happened in 1971 in the short story category and in 1977 in the script category . beginning in 1980 the eligibility year for nominations was set to the calendar year , rather than december – november as initially conceived , and the sfwa organizing panel was allowed to add an additional work . authors were also allowed to use the mass - market paperback publication of their books as the beginning of their nomination period , rather than the initial hardback publication . as a consequence of the combination of this rule and the rolling eligibility , the 2007 awards , despite nominally being for works published in 2006 , instead were all given to works initially published in 2005 . beginning with the 2010 awards , the rolling eligibility system and paperback publication exemption were replaced with the current rules . categories beside the nebulas , several other awards and honors are presented at the nebula awards ceremony , though not necessarily every year . two of them are annual literary awards voted by sfwa members on the nebula ballot : the andre norton award for outstanding young adult science fiction or fantasy book , inaugurated 2006 , and the ray bradbury award for outstanding dramatic presentation , which replaced the best script award in 2010 . the others are the damon knight memorial grand master award since 1975 for " lifetime achievement in science fiction and / or fantasy " , the author emeritus since 1995 for contributions to the field , the kevin o 'donnell , jr . award for service to sfwa , and the kate wilhelm solstice award since 2009 for significant impact on speculative fiction . all four are discretionary but a grand master , selected by the officers and past presidents , has been named every year for more than a decade . the solstice award may be presented posthumously ( where only living writers may be named grand master or author emeritus ) ; in all , twelve have been awarded in five years to 2013 . recognition the nebula awards have been described as one of " the most important of the american science fiction awards " and " the science - fiction and fantasy equivalent " of the emmy awards . along with the hugo award , the nebula award is also considered one of the premier awards in science fiction , with laura miller of salon terming it " science fiction 's most prestigious award " , and justine larbalestier , in the battle of the sexes in science fiction ( 2002 ) , referring to it and the hugo award as " the best known and most prestigious of the science fiction awards " . brian aldiss , in his book trillion year spree : the history of science fiction , claimed that the nebula award provided " more literary judgment " while the hugo was a barometer of reader popularity , rather than artistic merit , though he did note that the winners of the two awards often overlapped . david langford and peter nicholls stated in the encyclopedia of science fiction ( 2012 ) that the two awards were often given to the same works , and noted that some critics felt that the nebula selection reflected " political as much as literary ability " as it did not seem to focus as much on literary talent over popularity as expected . several people within the publishing industry have said that winning or being nominated for a nebula award has effects on the author 's career and the sales of that work . spider robinson in 1992 , as quoted in science fiction culture ( 2000 ) , said that publishers " pay careful attention " to who wins a nebula award . literary agent richard curtis said in his 1996 mastering the business of writing that having the term nebula award on the cover , even as a nominee , was a " powerful inducement " to science fiction fans to buy a novel , and gahan wilson , in first world fantasy awards ( 1977 ) , claimed that noting that a book had won the nebula award on the cover " demonstrably " increased sales for that novel . there have been several anthologies collecting nebula - winning short fiction . the series nebula winners , published yearly by sfwa and edited by a variety of sfwa members and renamed as the nebula awards showcase series since 1999 , was started in 1966 as a collection of short story winners and nominees for that year . the sales of these anthologies were intended to pay for presenting the awards themselves . the anthology the best of the nebulas ( 1989 ) , edited by ben bova , collected winners of nebula awards from 1966 through 1986 officially selected by sfwa members . the unofficial anthology nebula award winning novellas ( 1994 ) , edited by martin h. greenberg , contained ten stories which had won the novella award between 1970 and 1989 .