Cover Contest

Make that contestS because there are several possibilities here. Four covers and four potential cover commissions.

If you saw my post on cover art at Sid Love's last week, you're aware that I'm working on a couple of little things before I dive back into Boy with the Painful Tattoo. And, as I've done before, I thought it would be fun and possibly inspirational to solicit art from readers .

I'm paying $75.00 for each winning cover (not including any photos that must be purchased) and the artist of course gets a cover credit inside the book.

There's not a huge amount of time on this because...I'm not that organized and this is how it's working out.  So basically the deadline is March 17th and then that gives readers a chance to pick finalists, and then me a chance to pick the winners. Assuming there are any entrants -- and assuming I like the covers!

So here are the projects:

1 – SLAY RIDE – A hardboiled Christmas short story set in the 1940s during World War II. Based on a true and rather grim event in the western US.

2 – WHAT'S LEFT OF KISSES?** – A collection of my historical novellas. The stories will include The Dark Farewell, Snowball in Hell, Out of the Blue, Slay Ride, and maybe This Rough Magic. So that offers several possibilities for the cover (and you can learn more about each title at my website where there are excerpts, etc.)

**The title is from a quote by Bertolt Brecht: “The human race tends to remember the abuses to which it has been subjected rather than the endearments. What's left of kisses? Wounds, however, leave scars.” **

3 – A SHOT IN THE DARK: 2 Novellas – The collection contains This Rough Magic and Ill Met by Moonlight.

4 - EVERYTHING I KNOW - contemporary novella about a young teacher wrongfully fired because of the thoughtless comments of a student's father (in other words, I have no idea how to explain this story).

Those are the projects. Everyone is welcome to submit -- professional, aspiring professional, and just-enjoy-fooling-around-with-clipart.

 Here's how it's going to work (at least in theory). Create your cover in jpeg format - 500 x 750 for our purposes (thanks to Lou Harper for pointing this out!) Remember to consider how the cover will look when shrunk down to thumbnail size.

On the 17th I'm going to post each title and the submission art. The art will be posted without the name of the artist to try and keep it impersonal and focused on the work.

On the 21st I will post the finalists. Of course if there aren't a lot of entries that simplifies that! And then on the 24th, I'll pick my winners.

If you need to purchase photos, try and select from Shutterstock because I already have an account there, and that makes it simple. Please don't use photos or cover art that is not in public domain (unless it can be licensed at a reasonable cost).

I think that's it. Feel free to post questions below.