Here’s the big announcement!
Drum rolls please…. The three winners are, and no particular order:
Confessions of the Dearly Departed by Brett Stanfill
Follows Direction by Ellen A. Wilkin
Breath by Sora Kess
Let me tell you narrowing down the (confession time — nine) entries to just these three was not easy. Were I an agent or a publisher, my next step would have been to narrow the choices down, and ask for a partial, or a complete manuscript. But I’m not, so what I had to go on mostly was the synopsis. Hint writers: practice the art of synopsis writing or query writing. The hook must be good and it must be there in the first couple of sentences. Need help learning what it should do/sound like? Go to the bookstore and read back cover copy. Essentially, if you can boil down your story into compelling back cover copy you’ve got your hook.
But back to the contest. Because the excerpts were so short I really concentrated on the synopses to sell me the idea. Was there enough of an idea to carry off a complete and engaging story? Did I clearly get an idea who the main characters were and what was at stake for them? OR was the idea so compelling that I could see images coming together to illustrate it?
The nature of Nanowrimo is such that I know these are first drafts and that likely no editing or rewriting went into the entries. So I didn’t choose based on the quality of the writing itself, since again, 250 words of an excerpt is barely enough to give me a hint at whether or not a writer my be able to pull off their idea in the final manuscript. But I hope so. That said, there was one standout in this regard—at least in the little excerpt I read—Sora Kess’s entry Breath was lyrical and intriguing and images swirled in her text and in my mind. Can she pull it off in the long haul? I’d be interested in finding out.
Given that I have some other work in house, and real life obligations, I ask these winners and those following this contest to have patience with me. Cover concepts WILL be coming just as soon as possible. I’ve decided to let you all in on the design process and show how these covers evolve from concept through finished piece. I hope you’ll come back to see how that happens.
For those of you not chosen—please take heart—I enjoyed reading your entries. You made the choice difficult. What creative ideas you all have! The ideas ran the gamut, though sci-fi and fantasy seemed to dominate. I did not pick winners based on genre, because ALL genres are legitimate, and deserve to be considered.
In this contest, I did leave genre off the list of things to tell me. But genre is VERY important when it comes to querying and in cover design. That’s another post altogether and one I will address in future.
Meanwhile for next year’s contest if you have suggestions about how to make it better, and how to get the word out, please comment here. I would loved to hear from you.
Congratulations “winners!” Congratulations to all of you. You’re truly all winners.
Tags: bookcover, contest, cover, creativity, design, hook, Nanowrimo, query