Book Cover of the Month: January

Happy First everyone! For me, the first has become book cover bracket day. Last month, the bracket was a lot of fun, and a bunch of people seemed to enjoy it, so I was more than happy to keep the bracket going.

If you’ve been following me on Facebook, you’ve seen that every day this month, I’ve been posting covers. These all have something that I felt at least worthy of mentioning, or I simply thought they were amazing.

I think January’s bracket is even stronger than December’s. Let’s cover a few possible notes.

First: Hey…Isn’t one of those the cover to your book?

Yep.  It is.  For starters, it’s my bracket, so I sort of have privilege. Also, I honestly feel it’s a strong cover.  You see…I pride myself on my ability to critique and analyze imagery, so it’d be a little weird if I didn’t think my own cover held up.  That said, I promise (you’ll have to trust me on that) I won’t vote in any pairing that includes my book. I’m egotistical enough to put it in the bracket, but I will at least recuse myself from actually being self-indulgent enough to vote when I know my own bias.  That brings me to my second note.

Second: I’ve tagged all the writers for the books in WordPress as well as in my Facebook post. I hope they and their readers support them. However, please do your best to vote for the best cover. This isn’t a book competition (though that brings to mind some fun ideas); it’s a cover competition. Also, please vote based on what you feel is honestly the best cover. If you had to pick one book, which one would it be? I love competition like this, and I hope to have as many people participate as possible, but I’d be sad to hear anyone is simply stacking the deck and voting for his or her own book. Vote because it’s the best cover, and only for that reason.

Third: What’s A Throne of Bones doing there? Didn’t it lose last month?

Yep! But there were only 31 days in January, and I needed a 32nd book. To me, the most fair thing to do was take the second-highest vote earner from last month and put it in here “Double Elimination” style.  I’ll be doing that for all relevant months. That means this month’s winner goes straight to my “Book Cover of the Year” file, and the next four runners up (because February has a funny number of days) will get a second chance. It’s the most fair way I could think of to ensure a full bracket.

Fourth: Why isn’t it working?

Are you on your smart device? I’m told this bracket isn’t friendly to cell phones. I have’t heard anything on tablets just yet. I’m sorry about this, but apparently Brackify isn’t quite smart phone friendly.  I’ve let them know, and they tell me they’re working on it. That said, if you do get things done with a cell phone, please let me know.

Now for the details: The first round will last from today until Feb. 8.

The next round goes from then until the 15th.

The Elite Eight goes from the 15th to the 17th.

The Final Four will go until Feb. 19.

The Finals will end at midnight Feb. 19 (so there’s only one day to vote!)

Please vote, and vote in each round. I’d love for this to take off because I love competitions, and I love discussion. So feel free to comment on winners and losers.

Without more ceremony, you can go here to vote!

Book Cover of the Month Finals!

It’s been a fun experiment, one I’m glad I thought of. I know I’ll be doing one for January. We’ll see how this thing grows. I like competition and things like that, so I’ll give this some time, and hopefully it’ll take off.

With that said, voting for the finals for the month of December are officially ongoing! It’s been fun seeing how things have progressed.  We started with 16 nice covers, and I can really get behind the two remaining books.

Your finalists for the month of December are:

A Throne of Bones by Vox Day and Betrayer’s Bane by Michael G. Manning. Both are beautiful covers.

 

 

(NOTE: Both covers provided to assist in voting and review purposes under fair use)

You can see the whole bracket and vote here. But thanks to J.R., I noticed some devices have trouble loading the actual matchup, so if you just want to vote and see larger versions, you can do that here. (Also, I have the books above for your full viewing enjoyment.

Voting lasts until Jan. 17 at midnight (so it’s over the first minute of Jan. 18). I’ll post the winner on my blog the following day. I’ll also buy that book and add it to my TBR pile.

Thanks for reading

Matt

 

Book Cover of the Month Final Four!

I just wanted to update you all on the progress of the Book Cover of the Month bracket.  We’re into the Final Four. The bracket is going along well. You can vote in the next round right here. Voting on this round only last for two days, so vote now while you have the chance!

Thanks for reading,

Matt

 

 

Book Cover of the Month Update!

Round 1 is over!  The Book Cover of the Month voting is now down to the Elite 8!

I want to thank everyone who voted. I think we ended with 68 votes. I hope you found a cover you fell in love with and that it won this round. Feel free to let me know your thoughts in the comments below.

Now, the next thing is to vote in the next round!  Head on over here to plug in your votes for round 2!

This round of voting will last until Midnight Jan. 12.

Thanks for voting and reading,

Matt

Book Cover of the Month for December 2016

Where the idea came from: As a teacher, I follow my students after graduation. I look at their work. What I do, is I go to Navy.mil (where all the Navy photography can be found) and look at 10 pages. I share the photos I like on my alter ego’s page. It’s my way of giving my students credit for what they do, showing my support, and helping my current students see what we’re looking for.  So I took that idea to Amazon. I want to the Fantasy & Science Fiction section and looked at books released during the past 30 days. I look at 10 pages, and pick my favorite.  Then I post it on FB and talk about why I like the cover.

If you follow me on Facebook, and I’d be honored if you did (just like my page), you’ve seen me post my Book Cover of the Day post.  Well, since I’ve been talking about the book covers I’ve liked over the past month, I figured it would be fun for everyone to vote on their favorite.  Now, I started this in late December, so you’ll notice there’s only 16 this time. I’ll have a full 32 cover competition at the end of January. It’s my plan to do one every month, then do one for the whole year. This lets you all do a few things.

1. It allows you to participate in my blog, which is pretty much awesome!
2. You can get a picture of what I like about covers. I teach photography, and layout and design (among many other things). I like to look at work and talk about what “works” for me and what doesn’t
3. I’ll read the winning book and post a review here on this blog.
4. I get to meet more of you on FB and other social media sites.

How it works:

Well, that’s simple. The bracket is right here. You should also be able to see and vote on it below. This is my first time trying something like this, so we may have to work on some bugs.

First round voting goes from midnight Jan. 4 to midnight Jan. 8.

The Elite Eight voting last from the end of the first round until midnight Jan. 12.

The SEMIS go from then until Jan 14.

The voting for the FINAL lasts until midnight Jan. 17. I’ll post the results here on my usual Wednesday blog, Jan. 18.

I’d love this to reach as far as possible, so any like’s shares  RTs and whatever else social media allows would be greatly appreciated. I love book covers, and this gives all of us a way to talk about them, which brings me to my last point.

Talk about these. Talk about what you like. Talk about what you don’t. If we can look at art and critique it, we’ll all get better. I want to know what you guys think.