Category: 2009 Book Covers

It’s time to announce the overall winner of the 2009 Best Cover Award for books by LDS authors. But first, a little commentary and explanation.

I designed some awards. Yes, I did! It took me most of one day over the holidays, so I hope the winners will display them on their blogs or websites with pride.

Genre Category Finalist Award

All the genre finalists—all 35 of the original five covers in each of the seven genre areas—will receive a Genre Category Finalist Award. (See left.)

This is a lovely silver medal that lists the year and the genre the cover was placed in.

After that, the awards break into two categories: Readers Choice (as voted on by you) and Publisher’s Choice (as voted on by me).

Genre Category Winner Awards
Each genre will have two Best Genre Cover awards.

One will be the Readers’ Choice Best Genre Cover, like the lovely award to the right. This award is for the winners from the VIZU polls. It is gold, because it’s a gold winner, and it clearly says Readers’ Choice at the top.

The other is the Publisher’s Choice Best Genre Cover. It is also gold, but has LDS Publisher at the top — because LDS Publisher (me) picked these winners. Not that my taste is superior to that of the reader, but I love the covers that I love and want them to get something special, too. In some genres, the same book won both of these awards.

Best Cover Awards

Last, there is THE overall winner, Best Book Cover of 2009, where the winners of each genre category went head-to-head. Again, there are the two categories—Readers’ Choice and Publisher’s Choice. Once again they are gold and they have either Reader’s Choice (picked by you) or LDS Publisher (picked by me) at the top of the award. The bottom of the award, of course, says BEST COVER.

I will be sending out emails to the authors, probably later today and will attach the awards for them. If you’re a winner and don’t get your award by Tuesday, it means I don’t have your email address and you’ll need to send it to me.

Also, one last note. I have posted my thoughts about each book cover in the comments of the Genre Finalists posts, so you can read why I picked the ones I did, as well as why the readers picked the ones they did.

We have winners in each of the genre categories, which will now go head to head for the 2009 Best Cover Award!

They are (in alphabetical order):

Abish by Brenda Anderson
Publisher: Cedar Fort

Altared Plans by Rebecca Cornish Talley
Publisher: Cedar Fort

The Dragon War Relic by Berin L. Stephens
Publisher: Bonneville Books (CFI)

Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford
Publisher: Ballantine Books

Just One Wish by Janette Rallison
Publisher: Putnam Juvenile

Murder by the Book by Betsy Brannon Green
Publisher: Covenant

Princess of the Midnight Ball by Jessica Day George

Voting uidelines:

• Pick your favorite COVER, not your favorite book or author.
• Vote using the VIZU poll on the sidebar. You may vote for one book only.
• 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 Friday, January 2, 2010.
• On Saturday, January 2, I’ll post the winner of the Best Cover of 2009.

See poll results:

• General/Womens
• Historical
• Middle Grade
• Mystery
• Romance
• Speculative
• Young Adult

This Cover Contest idea turned out to be more difficult than I expected. There were so many covers that I liked for such a variety of reasons.

So, here’s how it will work.

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

I’ve picked my top five favs 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.

So, here are the basic guidelines:

• Pick your favorite COVER, not your favorite book or author.
• Vote using the VIZU polls on the sidebar. You may vote for one book in each genre category.
• Please 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 Thursday, December 24th.
• On Friday, December 26th, I’ll post the winners from each genre and then you can vote on which of those seven is, IYHO, the best cover of 2009.