GENERAL RULES
These General Rules, the Category Information, and How to Enter provide the full details regarding entering the GMG Awards 2025.
If you have any queries regarding your entry or nomination, please contact admin@gardenmediaguild.co.uk
1. All entries must have been first published or broadcast between Friday, 30th August 2024 and Thursday, 28th August 2025.
2. All entry forms & fees must be received by GMG no later than Thursday, 28th August 2025.
3. All entry submissions for categories 1, 2, 3, 9, 11, 13, 14, & 15, where material is not uploaded with the entry form, must be received by Thursday, 4th September 2025. Late or incomplete entries will not be considered. All submissions will be checked and acknowledged by email, so please allow a week to receive your submission acknowledgement.
4. Each entry must be made using the official entry form on the GMG website.
5. Please ensure you’ve answered all the questions on the entry form and provided the information in the format required. Entries with insufficient information or which haven’t followed the rules of entry may be disqualified.
6. Entrants may only enter their work in a maximum of four different categories and can only enter each category once.
- If you are named in the entry as the creator or one of the creators of the work, then it counts as one of your entries.
- However, if you interview someone on your platform (podcast, blog, magazine, social media, video etc) then it counts as your entry not an entry for the person who is interviewed, even if you don’t appear.
7. The same piece of work may not be entered in more than one category.
8. You may enter your own work or that of someone else. If the person whose work is being entered is a GMG member, there is no fee. But if, for instance, an editor who is a GMG member enters one of their writers who is a non-GMG member, the fee is applicable (£60 for books, £45 for other categories except “The Alan Titchmarsh New Talent” which is free of charge). If a book publisher is a GMG member, their first non-GMG member entry is free, but all subsequent non-GMG member entries will incur the fee.
9. If you are nominating someone’s work, please liaise with them to ensure there is only one entry per category.
10. If a substantial part of your entry has been created using AI, you must inform us when submitting your entry.
11. Submitted work must be easily accessible to the judges.
- Paywalls should be removed for the entirity of the judging period. (08/09/25-13/10/25) Or the entry should be submitted as a PDF, including any relevant comments or feedback.
- Unless otherwise stated on the entry form, please submit all examples in a PDF format. For upload to the website, total PDF size cannot exceed 25mb.
12. Except for the photography categories, all entries must have been published in English.
13. Books from outside the UK. A translation should be entered in the year it was translated into English, rather than the date it was published. If a book is entered by a non-UK member, the book does not necessarily have to serve a UK audience (ie it may talk about Zones or deal with plants that don’t grow in the UK).
14. Payments are to be made via debit/credit card through the GMG website, and must be made before the deadline date of 28th August 2025 for the entry to be accepted.
- If your organisation needs to pay by BACS transfer, please ensure you contact admin@gardenmediaguild.co.uk with your unique entry reference, and purchase order number if required, in plenty of time to complete the transaction before the payment deadline. Following receipt of this email an invoice will be emailed to you.
15. Failure to make payment by the deadline date will invalidate the entry. If the entry criteria are not met, no refunds will be made.
16. GMG members based abroad are allowed to enter their work to the Awards. If a non-member wishes to enter their work, then work in print categories should be available for sale in the UK and if online, the entrant should send screenshots of their analytics showing that at least 25% of their audience is UK based.
17. The judges reserve the right to move an entry into a different category if they deem it to be more appropriate.
18. Entries for each category will be considered by a panel of specialists. If a judge has made a contribution to an entry, he or she will be moved to a different category.
19. The judges of the GMG Awards cannot provide feedback on individual entries, and the official ‘Judges’ Comments’ statement only applies to the winner of each category, not to short-listed entries. This follows the standard policy of other media awards.
20. There will be one winner in each category, unless the judges exercise their right not to make an award in a category.
21. Winners will receive a personalised award certificate and the right to use and display the Guild’s award logo. Finalists will have the right to use and display the Guild’s Finalist award logo. The award logo may not be adapted or changed in any way.
22. By entering, you grant the Guild the right to display your work, duly credited, at the Awards Ceremony and elsewhere. The copyright of your work remains with you.
23. When the Guild announces and subsequently publishes the winners of the GMG Awards, the GMG only publishes the following information about the entrant: name, the category won and the work entered. This is the only personal information the GMG will provide to third parties and it is solely for the purpose of promoting or advertising the GMG Awards and the winners. If a third party wishes to make contact, we will forward correspondence to entrants.
24. It is not possible to return awards entry material.
25. If your entry is short-listed, you will be notified directly by email some time in mid or late October and the short-lists will be published on the GMG website and social media. Winners are not announced prior to the Awards event on Friday, 21st November 2024.
26. By entering the GMG Awards you are agreeing to all the above terms and conditions.