A May Book Cover of the Month Update

Greetings all!

Usually about this time (three days) would be when the Sweet 16 begins.  While we’re not doing a round-by-round bracket, I still think this is a nice time to update everyone on how things are shaking out so far.

First, another explanation on how this structure works.  Brackify says, “Rank results are calculated by how far an entry advances in the bracket based on match results, not total vote count.”

What’s that mean? Well, You can have a million votes, but they do you no good if you only get them in one round. What matters is how many voters vote for a certain cover to move on.

What I like about this format: This structure really does make it easy on voters. One vote and done. Also, we’re getting close to breaking the all-time voting record after less than three days. That’s wonderful! The best thing about this format is that no one is ever out of it until the very end.

What I don’t like about this format: It’s possible for a book that lost a round to still win the bracket. Let me try to explain.  Say Book 1 lost to Book 2 in the first round. However, if more voters selected Book 1 to go to the finals, Book 1 would actually move on unless Book 2 had a more dominant win in the first round. I’ve actually been monitoring that situation in this bracket. Tangled Echoes has a solid number of finalist votes, but it wasn’t until City of Miracles finally managed to over take it that Echoes fell from #1 all the way to #18 (as things stand as I type this).

Echoes doesn’t need a bunch of first round votes (though at this stage that would do the trick), it actually only needs one or two people to vote it back to the finals. I’m not sure what I think about a book being able to advance when it didn’t win a round. In this format, what matters is how far a book goes per bracket, not how many votes it gets. In my opinion, round-by-round is more demanding on participants, but way easier to understand. Please don’t misunderstand, I like all these covers. That’s why I featured them on this blog. If Echoes beat five other covers to win the day, then I’d have no problem with that. My problem would be if someone one the bracket after losing a round. To put your mind at ease, I’ve checked, and the current Sweet 16 all on their first round. So the current covers would have moved on in the original format. What are your thoughts?

Now that we’ve explained the process, let’s look at how things stand after three full days of voting.

The current top four are:

Dawn of War by Robbie MacNiven, The Lost Travencal by C.M. Jobe, The Other One by Amanda Jay, and Fate of the Big Bad Wolf by Neo Edmund.

The next four contenders are:

Reaper Reborn by Bryan Davis, The Acquisition of Swords by Timothy Ray, and City of Miracles by Robert Jackson Bennett.

Lead Cover:

As you saw above, MacNiven’s Dawn of War is currently in the lead.

Top Vote Earner:

It’s important to know that this bracket was never a popular vote. The top vote earner for each round always moved on, but there have been plenty of times one cover received a ton of votes in one round, but fell short in the following round. Winning a round still means more than getting more votes.  That said, it’s still cool to know who’s getting support.

The top vote earner so far is The Other One by .

Least voted on cover:

We have a tie in this regard. They are: The Wizard Killer Season Two by Adam Dreece and Immortals by . They each have 79 total votes, but they haven’t gotten enough votes to get them out of that first round.

There’s still 10 days left to show your support for your favorite cover. If you’ve already voted, but your favorite isn’t winning, please feel free to share the bracket on your respective social media platforms. The more people who vote, the better.

Vote by clicking this link.

Thanks for reading,

Matt