A ballot is posted in June for attendees of the current and previous two conferences to determine two of the finalists, and a panel of five judges adds three or more nominees before voting on the overall winner.
[5] Unlike the other World Fantasy Award categories, the Convention Award has no nominees and is not decided in the usual way; instead, the winner is selected by the convention organizers themselves and announced along with the nominees in the other categories.
[5][7] The final results are presented at the World Fantasy Convention at the end of October.
Items in the Work(s) column are items and companies that the winner created or worked at; they are meant to be representative of the winner's career in the field of fantasy to that point, but the World Fantasy Convention Award is not given for any specific achievement, and no such achievements are listed by the World Fantasy Convention as reasons for the award.
In some cases the winner is well known for their non-fantasy works, such as science fiction novels, which are not listed.