February Sweet 16!

The Sweet 16 is here!

After yet ANOTHER record breaking round, we’re down to 16 covers. I’m so glad to see such a positive response to the contest. But enough about me and my elation, let’s look at what happened after 1,467 votes!

Let’s go over some numbers:

 

The Closest Contest:

We have a few ties here.  The Winter Over vs War Factory and Ringing in a New Year vs An Impossible War were both decided by just four votes! War and Winter were the victors in those close contests.  Over earns the tiebreaker in because it’s narrow 52% margin of victory.

The Largest Victor:
Bentz Deyo is back people! He brought his following for his cover to The Unleashed to defeat A Gathering of Shadows by 41 votes! The Elven Tales had the largest margin of victory over Death’s Mistress with 71% of the votes. Those are some pretty impressive numbers.

Most Voted On Contest:
Unleashed vs Shadows had the most votes with 119.

Least Voted On Contest:
I’m thrilled to say that every contest had 80 or more votes.  Four matches were tied for the least votes at 80: The Destiny Thief vs Three Years With the Rat, Surviving the Evacuation: Ireland vs Smoke Happens, Age of Myth vs Explorations: First Contact, and Winter vs War Factory.

Most Votes:
Unleashed is back on top with the most votes. Mr. Deyo spoke with me. He’s very determined to make the most of this second chance, and he’s already making good on his word with 80 votes in this round.

So now it’s on to the Sweet 16!  This round will last until March 15. That’s 7 days to pick which 8 will move on.

Head over here and vote!

Thanks for reading,

Matt

February

Book Cover of the Month of February

Happy 1st everyone! For me, that means it’s time for a new Book Cover of the Month Bracket, and I’m more excited every time I do this.  If you’re curios or new, check out the Book Covers for December and January.

Last month was simply enormous, and I hope to keep this momentum going in the right direction. We have 28 new covers to look at, and the top four runners up from last month have a second shot to win the month!

If you know the authors or the artists, please share this and tag them. I try to tag or friend every author I can, but sometimes it’s hard to track someone down. Max participation is a huge deal to me. The more people who vote, the more recognition these authors and artists receive, and I want this to be as legitimate as possible.

Round 1 will go from today to March 8.

The Sweet 16 will run from then to the 15th.

The Elite 8 will take it from there until the 18th.

The Final 4 runs from the 18th to the 20th.

The Finals will go from the 20th to the 22nd.

I hope you keep having fun. Please, vote, share, and discuss as much as possible.

All you have to do now is head over here to vote!

Thanks for reading,

Matt

 

Final 4! January Book Cover of the Month

And then there were 4!

First, a bit of news that I’m proud of.  This little idea of mine has now crossed the 2,000 vote barrier, and it’s still one of the most popular brackets on Brackify.com. We had 437 votes in this round alone, pushing us to 2,084 total votes.  I’m honestly humbled by that, and I think the authors and artists behind these covers would be equally proud.

As they say in football, let’s go to the tape:

The Closest Contest:
This depends on how you look at it. In terms of simple votes, A Gathering of Shadows only beat Tested by Magic by four tiny votes.  *Refreshes page hoping the last 45 minutes of voting don’t change things*  But the surprising close call is actually also the most voted on contest.  That would be Loveless by Marissa Howard. It beat Dominion by Michael C. Miles by 12 votes, but it only had 53% of the votes (the same as Gathering vs Tested).  It really was a close match, and that caused it to be the most contested.

The Largest Victor:
The Unleashed by Bentz Deyo was simply dominant in its match against Rebel, Pawn, King by Morgan Rice.  Unleashed won by 46 votes (72 percent of the votes).

Most Voted On Contest:
The most contested match in the young history of this idea in terms of votes is Loveless vs Dominion. How contested was it? It received a total of 163 votes! (That’s almost as many votes as the December BCOTM had in total.  Seriously, if Marissa or Michael are out there, send your fans a FB message or Tweet, because they showed up for you, and it helped you both!  While Dominion didn’t make it into the next round, it did receive enough votes to get an honorary spot in the February bracket. This is because it was a short month, and I always use runners up to fill out the bracket of 32.  So don’t fret Dominion fans! You’ll have another chance to get that cover into the 2017 bracket.

I’d like to thank the voters myself.  Sure, no other contest came anywhere NEAR 163 votes, the others were well above 70.  I do ask that if you vote for one, you vote for all, but this round was at least a little closer.

Least Voted On Contest:
There will always be one of these.  And the low vote-earner for this round was Tested vs Gathering. It only received 72 votes, and they needed every single one of them.

Most Votes:
Loveless received 89 votes for the round, and is tied for the overall lead with 213 votes. That’s some incredible support in my opinion.

The Final Four is another quick round. It ends when the clock strikes midnight of Feb. 19. (That’s about 48 hours).

Only 1 will win, but the other authors can still be proud because they’re all guaranteed AT LEAST a chance to try again in the February bracket.

Do me a favor? I’m still working out a lot, and I want to be sure there’s enough time to vote. I have to balance that with life and being able to launch the brackets, but if you think these last few rounds aren’t enough time, please let me know.

But do it after you vote, because you don’t have enough time!

Head over here and vote!

Thanks for reading,

Matt

January Book Cover of the Month Elite 8

We’re down to the Elite 8!

This was easily the most exciting round in the short history of this little event I’ve come up with.  And the votes are just staggering.  We’re up to 1,647, which means the Sweet 16 had 593 votes all by itself. I had to wait until just a few moments before midnight to declare a winner (and even now I’m refreshing the bracket to be sure one contest didn’t change).

As they say in football, let’s go to the tape:

The Closest Contest:
For the second round in a row, Upside Down found itself in a nail biter. It wasn’t able to pull of the victory this time though.  *Refreshes screen to be sure nothing’s changed* Only 45 minutes from the end of the round, Rebel, Pawn, King, managed to eek out a two-vote victory.  I’ll be honest, I’m a HUGE fan of Upside Down, but it couldn’t find the votes it needed.  It was the closet in terms of how many votes separated it and marine of victory (decided by only 3%!)

In terms of margin of victory, the closest contest was Marked vs The Veil. Markedreceived more raw votes, but it only received 52% of the 67 votes from the contest.

The Largest Victor:
Dominion beat The Liberation by a margin of 32 raw votes and 40% of the total votes. I think this artist should be very proud and very grateful to her following. (I don’t mean that sarcastically, that’s AMAZING support for a great talent.)

Most Voted On Contest:
As much support as Dominion got, Human vs The Unleashed got just ONE more vote (81 total votes as I type this). Those contests and Loveless vs ShadowBound all received more than 75 votes.  On that note, I’m overjoyed to see such support. I want fans of these artists and authors to come show their support, but while you’re doing so, please take the time to vote on the other contests. I’m very glad that every contest had at least 60 votes, but I’d be even happier if there was less separation between the most voted on and least voted on match. I think it shows respect to all those involved.

Least Voted On Contest:
To stress my point on the above contest, two matches received 60 votes. Queen of Chaos vs Tested by Magic and A Gathering of Shadows vs Orbital each earned those.  Neither match was very close, and I understand how quickly a favorite could form, but I think those were four very nice covers.

Most Votes:
Go figure! This was also a tie!  The Unleashed and Dominion each received 56 votes. If I’m going to call a tie breaker, I’d have to give it to The Unleashed as it has the most votes overall (136). Loveless is the only other book that has received more than 100 (124) votes so far. (Dominion is sitting between those two with 121 total votes in case you were curious.)

So now it’s on to the Elite 8!  This round will last until Feb. 17 at midnight. That’s not a lot of time, but you only have 4 matches to vote on! So, authors and artists, make sure you reach out to your fans and get them voting to support you (and the rest of the competitors).

I’m still amazed at how successful this has been. I mentioned on Facebook that this bracket is currently one of the most popular on Brackify (at least is was when I was typing this). Let’s keep the momentum going!

Head over here and vote!

Thanks for reading,

Matt

January Book Cover of the Month Sweet 16

The Sweet 16 is here!

32 covers came in, and your votes have cut them down to 16. And BOY DID YOU VOTE! I’m thrilled! Last month, the bracket received a total of 137 votes, and I was over the moon. This month has already received ten times that number in the first round. As I type this (a few hours from midnight), there were  1,054 votes cast.

Let’s go over some numbers:

The Closest Contest:
That would be Upside Down vs Indelible.  Only five votes separated Upside Down from Indelible. This was my personal favorite bracket. I honestly feel guilty for putting those two up against each other in the first round. I assure you, this wasn’t by diabolical design. Honestly, I was just tossing them in the bracket as I came to them. Still, it was a great contest.

In terms of margin of victory, the closest contest was Marked vs The Veil. Marked received more raw votes, but it only received 52% of the 67 votes from the contest.

The Largest Victor:
Loveless beat Trackers by a margin of 64 raw votes. Dominion dominated it’s contest against The Ugly Inside by receiving 88% of the contest’s 71 votes.

Most Voted On Contest:
It was honestly a bit close, but the most voted on contest was New York Deep vs The Unleashed. This contest had a whopping 106 votes. Loveless vs Trackers was a close second with 104 total votes.

Least Voted On Contest:
The Sanctuary vs ’48 only received 49 votes. Here’s hoping those who voted for The Sanctuary to move on all come back in force for the next round.

Most Votes:
Loveless received 84 votes. That’s a great amount of support. The Unleashed, Dominion, and Shadowbound were the only other covers that came close (79, 63 and 60 votes respectively).

So now it’s on to the Sweet 16!  This round will last until Feb. 15. That’s about 8 days to pick which 8 will move on.

I want to say how happy I am that this is receiving so much support. These are great covers done by great artists for amazing authors. Here’s hoping it only gets bigger from here!

With all that said, what are you waiting for? Head over here and vote!

Thanks for reading,

Matt

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!