These rules were amended by vote of the Board of Directors on October 17, 2004. (See Forum issue 200, December 2004.) Go here for the current edition of the rules.

The Rules

Current as of 1/1/99

1. The Nebula Awards^® year shall begin on January 1 and end on December 31 of the year for which awards will be presented.
2. Awards will be made in the following categories:
   1. Short Story: less than 7,500 words.
   2. Novelette: at least 7,500 words but less than 17,500 words.
   3. Novella: at least 17,500 words but less than 40,000 words.
   4. Novel: 40,000 words or more. At the author's request, a novella-length work published individually, rather than as part of a collection or an anthology, shall appear in the novel category.
   5. Script: a professionally produced audio, radio, television, motion picture, multimedia, or theatrical script
3. Eligibility
   1. Works in categories (a) through (e) are eligible for twelve (12) months from the month of publication or release. A work's eligibility period begins on the first day of the month of its first publication in the United States, or, in the case of a dramatic work, on the day of its first release in a U.S. public theater, or first air-date on U.S. TV, or equivalent for radio plays and theatrical products, and ends on the last day of the preceeding month in the following year, or, in the case of a dramatic work, 365 days later.
   2. A work is eligible to be placed on the Preliminary Nebula Ballot only once. A work that has been placed on the Preliminary Nebula Ballot is no longer eligible, even if the twelve month eligibility period has not expired.
   3. The novel-length version of a previously-published short story, novelette, or novella shall be eligible upon the novel's first English-language publication in the USA. A novel re-issued in expanded or modified form shall not be eligible unless previously withdrawn in accord with Rule #6. A short story, novelette, or novella based on a previously-published work shall not be eligible.
4. Works must be in either the Science Fiction or the Fantasy genres. The Nebula Awards^® Report (NAR) Editor will decide the eligibility of a questionable work, subject to appeal to the Nebula Awards^® Committee.
5. Works are eligible whether or not their authors are members of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA). Works are eligible whether or not they have been previously published outside the United States of America.
6. The author of any eligible work may withdraw it from consideration in a given year and request that a later edition be considered for the Nebula, but only in two specific cases: (a) if it appeared as a limited edition publication, or (b) if the author finds the published version unacceptable as the result of editorial changes or production errors.
   The NAR editor shall decide whether or not to allow a withdrawal, subject to appeal to the Nebula Awards^® Committee.
7. Withdrawals
   1. An author must present a written request for withdrawal to the NAR editor within 30 days after the publication of the first Nebula Awards^® Report following publication of the work.
   2. For a later edition of a withdrawn work to be eligible, the author must present a written request for reinstatement of eligibility to the NAR editor.
   3. Recommendations shall not be accepted for a work withdrawn from eligibility, nor shall recommendations on file for any such work be carried over to the future.
   4. An author may permanently withdraw a work from eligibility by delivering a written request to the NAR editor. No work so withdrawn shall ever again be eligible for the Nebula.
8. All active members of SFWA in good standing are entitled to make recommendations and may vote on award ballots.
9. Works may not be recommended by their authors, editors, publishers, or any other party with a monetary interest in the work.
10. The SFWA^® President shall appoint a Nebula Awards^® Report (NAR) editor to compile, publish, and distribute to members a list of recommendations of works to be considered for the awards at intervals during the award year.
11. At the end of the Nebula Awards^® year, the NAR editor will issue a Preliminary Nebula Ballot. All works receiving ten (10) or more recommendations during their period of eligibility shall be placed on the Preliminary Ballot in their appropriate categories. The Preliminary Ballot must be mailed to active members no later than January 15.
12. Members will nominate no more than five works in each category on the Preliminary Ballot. These ballots shall be returned to the NAR editor or independent agent (as indicated on the ballot) before the Preliminary Ballot closing date, which will be not less than 28 days after the date of distribution of the Preliminary Ballot. The five works in each category receiving the most nominations will be placed on a Final Ballot.
13. The Final Ballot will be published and distributed by the NAR editor to all active members within fourteen (14) days after the Preliminary Ballot closing date.
14. Members will cast numerically ranked votes for works on the Final Ballot, writing 1 for the first choice in each category, 2 for the second, and so on; or, instead of ranked votes for nominated works, members may vote for "No Award." If any ranked vote is cast in a category, a vote for "No Award" in the same category will be disregarded. Members may leave any category completely unmarked; their ballots will only be counted in categories in which they have cast ranked votes or voted for "No Award."
15. Votes for "No Award" will be counted before ranked votes are counted. If forty (40) percent or more of the ballots received in a particular category received are marked only for "No Award," then no Nebula Award will be given in that category and votes in that category will not be counted.
16. Ranked votes for nominated works are counted by the "Australian ballot" method defined in this paragraph. On the first count of ranked votes for nominated works in a category, only first-ranked choices are counted. If any work is the first choice of a majority of the ballots cast for works in that category, it is declared the winner of the Nebula Award for that category. If no work has received a majority of first-ranked votes on the first count, additional counts will be made, as follows: The work which received the lowest number of best- ranked votes on the latest previous count is removed from further contention. Each ballot cast for the removed work is now counted for the work, still in contention, which received the next-best-ranked vote on that ballot. If no work that is still in contention has been marked with a ranked vote, that ballot is not counted again for that category. Additional counts will be made, removing the last-place work from contention each time, and adding next-best-ranked votes from its ballots to the totals for the works still in contention, until one work receives a majority of the votes cast in the latest count in that category, in which case that work is declared the winner of the Nebula Award for that category; or until only two works remain with exactly the same number of ballots counted in their favor, in which case the work, of those two, which received the greater number of first-ranked votes on the first count is declared the winner of the Nebula Award. If both works also had the same number of first-ranked votes on the first count, the voting is declared a tie, and both works will receive the Nebula Award.
17. The Final Ballot will be tabulated by an independent agency. To be counted, properly prepared Final Ballots must be received by the Final Ballot closing date, which shall be not less than 28 days after the date of distribution of the Final Ballot.
18. Nebula Juries
    1. The SFWA^® President shall appoint, and the NAR editor administer three Nebula juries, each consisting of at least three (3) and not more than seven (7) members. In the case of the Dramatic Script Nebula Jury, at least two members of that Jury shall have had at least one script professionally produced.
    2. The Short Fiction Jury shall have the option of adding one work to the Final Ballot in each of the three short fiction categories (short story, novelette and novella).
    3. The Novel Jury shall have the option of adding one work to the novel category.
    4. The Script Jury shall have the option of adding one work to the Script category. The Script Jury shall also be charged with ensuring, to the best of its ability, that the Nebula for best script is presented to the primary writer or writers of an actual script. Accordingly, the Jury shall be responsible for requesting a copy of the production script for each script on the Preliminary Ballot, and reviewing the attribution on those scripts, to ensure that the Award shall accurately reflect the true authorship of the Work. The Jury may disqualify productions where authorship is unclear or in doubt, or the accredited authorship consists of more than four individuals, with no primary author. Such disqualified productions will not appear on the Final Ballot.
    5. A Jury may not add to the Final Ballot a work written by a member of that Jury.
19. The Nebula Jury shall consider only eligible works published between January 1 and December 31 of the year for which awards will be presented.
20. The president shall have the power, at his/her discretion, to call for the presentation of a Grandmaster Award. A maximum of one Grandmaster Award can be presented each year with no requirement that an award be presented in any particular year. Nominations for Grandmaster Award shall be solicited from the Board of Directors, with the advice of participating past presidents, who shall vote, with participating past presidents, to determine its recipients. In case of a tie, the president's vote shall decide.
21. The officers of SFWA, at their discretion, may propose additional awards in special categories to be voted on by the active members. These additional awards will not be a Nebula Award.
22. The President shall appoint a three (3) person Nebula Awards^® Committee to rule on questions pertaining to the Nebula Awards^® rules. The NAR editor will serve as a secretary to this committee, but shall not be a voting member.
23. The Nebula Awards^® rules may be amended by a majority of the active membership or a majority of the officers.