The most coveted awards in the industry are, of course, the Newbery and Caldecott Medals and Honors. Janice Del Negro, editor of the Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books and a member of the 1997 Caldecott Committee, explained the process this way. The award committee consists of an elected chairperson, seven members appointed by the president of ALSC and seven elected by the ALSC membership. A similar process takes place for the ALA Notables, except that the discussions are in open session. Authors and illustrators may want to sit in on these meetings at ALA Midwinter to hear how books are chosen.
Publishers provide the committees with copies of all new books for consideration.
Any member of ALSC can also nominate a book for discussion by the committee. While people may differ on whether they agree with the selections made in a given year, the decisions are weighted in such a way that the group must keep going back into discussion until a strong consensus is achieved. For that reason, I don't see any way to influence the decision. The bottom line is to write the very best book you can. The biggest difference between children's and adult book marketing has been the importance of sales of children's books to schools and libraries.