2012 Book Cover Contest

Time for the 4th Annual Book Cover Contest!

I have pre-selected five finalists per genre category. You get to vote for your favorites.

When the voting is over, we’ll award Readers Choice and LDS Publisher Choice Awards.

 

 

Jan 21: General & Historical
Jan 22: Mystery/Suspense & Cozy Mysteries/Romantic Suspense
Jan 23: Romance (Traditional) & Romantic Comedy
Jan 24 :Speculative (Adult) & Speculative (Young Adult)
Jan 25: Young Adult General & Children/Middle grade
Jan 26: Genre Voting Ends at Midnight Mountain Time

Jan 28: Genre Winners Posted & Voting Begins on Overall Best Cover
Jan 30: Overall Best Cover Voting Ends at Midnight Mountain Time

Jan 31: Overall Winner Posted

 

For those of you who are new to this contest…

I’ve divided the covers into 10 genres, each genre with its own post page.

I’ve picked my top five favs (or nominated favorites) for each genre and posted them in alphabetical order.

Covers were picked based on how attractive I thought they were, and how well they communicated the feeling of the genre and the title. It had nothing to do with what is actually inside the book.

My personal tastes lean toward a cleaner look. I don’t like cluttered or fuzzy images. I like all styles—photographic, artistic, and clip art. I don’t care how big the title and/or author name is but it has to blend well with the image and not detract from it. I really like clever use of fonts—a dated font is usually going to nix a cover for me.

We could argue the artistic merits and complexities of these covers till the cows come home, but let’s don’t, because basically, choosing a book by its cover is an emotional response to the visual imagery and it’s going to be different for everyone.

Guidelines for voting:

 

• Pick your favorite COVER, not your favorite book or author.

• Vote using the link to the poll at the bottom of the post. You may vote for one book in each genre category.

• Feel free to leave comments stating why you liked a particular cover, or not. Be subjective—why/how did it grab you? How did it make you feel?

• You may point out that I obviously have no taste because I missed THE best cover in the genre (just don’t call me names).

• You may send all your friends over to vote, but please tell them to vote for the most visually appealing cover, and not for your book because you’re friends.

• You may vote through midnight, Saturday, January 26, 2012.

• On Monday, January 28th, I’ll post the winners from each genre and then you can vote on which of those is, IYHO, the best cover of 2012.

• Final voting will end at midnight, Wednesday, January 30, 2013. Winner will be announced on Thursday, January 31, 2013.

• There will be two awards in each category: LDS Publisher Choice & Readers Choice. In some cases, the same cover may win both awards.

• Prizes: Bragging rights and a WFFI* because your book won.

P.S.: Once the contest is over, I’ll post why I liked each of the covers.

P.S. #2: I’ve included the name of the cover designers when that info was available. If you know one that I left off, please let me know via email & I’ll update the post.
*warm fuzzy feeling inside