BAIPA

Bay Area Independent Publishers Association

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Submit Your Book Cover to BAIPA Contest by November 21

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David Kudler will lead a presentation on cover design at our December meeting and once again we will hold our annual book cover contest. (This is our fifth year, so it’s now practically an institution!) 

Since we’re not meeting in person, here’s how we’ll manage our 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.

About John Byrne Barry

John Byrne Barry is author of three "page-turners with a conscience" — When I Killed My Father: An Assisted-Suicide Family Thriller, Bones in the Wash: Politics is Tough. Family is Tougher, and Wasted, a "green noir" mystery set in the Berkeley recycling world. He's also an actor, bicycle tour leader, and crossing guard. He lives in Mill Valley.

Comments

  1. Mike Van Horn says

    John: Re BAIPA cover contest. I think authors should include a brief statement about what their cover tries to communicate. I’m going to do that here:
    — It’s science fiction, but not hard sci fi
    — light-hearted tone, not about violent space battles
    — female protagonist, but not a warrior
    — she’s a musician; she interacts with aliens musically
    — very advanced space ship design, obviously with artificial gravity
    — it’s part of a series

  2. John Byrne Barry says

    Mike, you make a good point, but we’re not going to do that for three reasons. One is that we already have a bunch of entries that do not have that statement. Two is that we won’t have the time in the meeting to review these statements. Three, most important, when readers see your cover, they won’t see your statement. When discussing covers, this kind of statement about what the cover is attempting to communicate would be useful, but when a reader is deciding whether to buy/read your book, they only have the cover, without the explanation.