The Whitney Awards are awards given annually for novels by LDS authors. Established in 2007, they are named after Orson F. Whitney, a prominent early member of the LDS Church. There are several categories for which novels may be nominated. The Whitney Awards are a semi-independent non-profit organization affiliated with the LDStorymakers, a guild for LDS authors.

Due to the limited number of titles released by LDS authors, several of the genre awards have been combined (such as romance and women's fiction).

As of 2014^[update], there are eight genre categories:

There are also two special awards:

The Whitney Committee states that it is unlikely that other areas of LDS art—such as music, poetry, or non-fiction books—will be added to the categories.

To be eligible, a novel must be written by an LDS author during the award year, and be at least 50,000 words long. Any reader can nominate a book. Once a book has received five or more nominations, it becomes an official nominee. The official nominees are presented to the Whitney Awards Committee which checks for eligibility and acts as a preliminary judging panel, reducing the number of nominees to no more than five per category.

Finally, ballots are sent to the Whitney Awards Academy, an invitation-only group consisting of authors, bookstore owners/managers, distributors, critics, and other industry professionals. By a popular vote, they decide on the winners. The awards are presented at a dinner held at the conclusion of the annual LDStorymakers conference and writing "boot camp."

Until the 2010 awards (presented 2011), books were not allowed to win in more than one category.