Reminder: BAIPA Book Cover Contest Deadline is November 21

Don’t forget to submit your book cover to our contest by November 21. We have accepted late submissions for previous contests, but that resulted in some mixups, so we’re not accepting anything after November 21.

You see all the specifications below. Any publication date is fine.

Member Mike Van Horn suggested, in response to the initial notice, that authors include a brief statement about what their cover is trying to communicate. His science fiction cover, he said, aims to suggest a light-hearted tone, not violent space battles, and a female protagonist who is also a musician.

He makes a solid point, and it could be a valuable lesson for cover design, but I responded saying we aren’t going to do that, partly because we have 15 submissions already and the contest would take longer than we have allotted. But the main reason is that when readers in the real world see your cover, they don’t see your statement. They only see the cover. So as is the case with your writing, it needs to stand on its own. This may sound harsh, but if what you intended to communicate with the cover doesn’t show up on the cover, it doesn’t matter what your intention was.

Here are the rules for the contest.

1. The contest is open to any book authored by a current BAIPA member, whether you worked with a designer on the cover or you designed it yourself. Any year of publication is fine. (Even next year, if the cover is finished.) You can submit a cover you’ve submitted before, unless you won. We can only accept one entry per author.
2. Fill out your contact information and genre and upload your cover here. Ideally at least 1000 pixels wide.
   
   
3. Deadline is November 21.
4. We will put the covers together into slides that we’ll display at the meeting and then we’ll use a Zoom poll and everyone present will get three votes.
   (Last year, we grouped the books into1(a) nonfiction, (b) memoir, (c) mystery & thriller, (d) children’s, and (e) general fiction, historical fiction, and poetry. This year’s categories will be determined by the volume of submissions in each category.)

Winner(s) get a free workshop in 2023. 

We look forward to seeing your covers.