2011 Book Cover Contest

It's time for our 3rd Annual Book Cover Contest here at LDS Publisher—and WOW! Was it ever hard to narrow it down this year! Not only were there more book covers to look at, but there were so many covers that were really, really good.

However, I forced myself to narrow the finalists down to five per category. Anything to make your voting experience easier. (Yes, that was tongue-in-cheek.)

I've changed things up a bit based on the three most frequent comments I received during the past two contests. Which were:

• Why can't we, your faithful readers, nominate covers? Starting this year, you could. What? You missed that announcement? It was right here. Yes, you only had a week to nominate. I'll try to give you more time next year. I gave every nominated cover extra consideration, even if it wasn't one that caught my eye. Not every cover that was nominated made the final genre cut. To make the cut, either I agreed with you that it was a good cover, or the cover received multiple nominations.
        
• When the genre category is so diverse, how do you possibly choose between covers? This was most often an issue for the mystery category (standard mystery/suspense vs cozy mysteries) and the romance category (traditional vs romantic comedy), although it did pop up a bit for other categories, too. So, I've added more categories this year. We'll see how it works.
        
• Eek! I didn't have enough time to vote in every category. Can you spread it out a little instead of doing it all on one day? Sure. No problem.

Posting & Voting Schedule:

Feb 2: General & Historical
Feb 3: Mystery/Suspense & Cozy Mysteries/Romantic Suspense
Feb 4: Romance (Traditional) & Romantic Comedy
Feb 6: Speculative (Adult) & Young Adult General
Feb 7: Young Adult Speculative (Boys) & Young Adult Speculative (Girls)
Feb 8: Middle Grade Fantasy & Middle Grade Realistic
Feb 10: Genre Voting Ends at Midnight

Feb 13: Genre Winners Posted & Voting Begins on Overall Best Cover
Feb 15: Overall Best Cover Voting Ends at Midnight

Feb 17: Overall Winner Posted


For those of you who are new to this contest...

I've divided the covers into 12 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 VIZU polls embedded within 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, Friday, February 10, 2012.
     
• On Monday, February 13th, I'll post the winners from each genre and then you can vote on which of those is, IYHO, the best cover of 2011.
      
• Final voting will end at midnight, Wednesday, February 15, 2012. Winner will be announced on Friday, Feb 17th.
     
• 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