The 2017 M.L.S. Weech Book Cover of the Year Bracket Starts Now!

Hello all and Happy New Year!

I’ve been building to this for quite some time, and I’m so excited to kick things off. This is it! Twelve Book Covers of the Month join four Wild Card Book Covers to comprise a sixteen-book tournament to determine which one will rule them all!

If you like, you can take a look at each book cover’s winning announcement: December, January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, and The Wild Cards.

346 book covers. 43,724 votes. All leading to this tournament! The covers were ranked 1-16 by the number of total votes each received. That means the cover that received the most votes (Loveless) is going up against the Wild Card that received the fewest votes. (The Girl Who Could See), and so on and so forth.

You can vote all the way through the tournament, supporting the covers you like best through each round. I like to make sure people get the credit they deserve, so please show your support. Please vote and share as much as possible to get people a chance to pick their favorite.

As always, I’d appreciate it if you tag the authors and artists if you know 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.

Image taken from Pixabay.

If you are the author, let’s remember to be good sports! 1) Please feel free to message or contact me at any time. 2) Please feel free to like, share, text, ask for support, and call everyone you know. I absolutely want max participation. However, if you’re going to offer giveaways or prizes, please offer them for voting, not just voting for you.

Also, while your summoning your army of voting soldiers, please make sure you ask them to vote in every match. Part of the idea of this is to get exposure to as many artists and authors as possible. By all means, if you can get 1,000 people to vote for your book, do it. Just please also send some eyeballs to the other matches.

A final note to authors and artists: I currently have links to the books’ Amazon pages. If you’d prefer I switch that link to sign up for your newsletter or like your social media page or whatever, just send me the link and let me know. I want this to help you. I want this to be as helpful as possible, so whatever you need me to do to facilitate that, just let me know.

It’s been fun, but, as I mentioned when I announced the Wild Card Winners, I’d like to end this tournament on a high note. I’m trying to get 10,000 total votes. Please, tell everyone. Get people to vote. I want this trophy to mean something, and it’ll frankly mean more as more people vote.

Also, if you’re wondering where the 2018 December’s Book Cover of the Month bracket is, worry not. That bracket will kick off RIGHT after the BCOTY ends. So this month will be pretty full and by the time we get to Feb. 1, people might be pretty tired of it. I’m not sure what else to do about it, so I’m open to ideas, but this is what I got right now.

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

The Results Are In! The M.L.S. Weech Book Cover of the Year Wild Card Round Winners!

Greetings all,

Five days of voting have come and gone, and that means it’s time to announce the last four seeds of the 2017 M.L.S. Weech Book Cover of the Year entries!

To say it was close doesn’t begin to give the statement justice. Three out of four of the elimination matches were decided by just one vote. I certainly hope everyone had a chance to vote and share. The fact is, I need a few days to get the tournament set up. I’m already concerned with how much I’m asking of people to vote on essentially four tournaments in two months. I’ve tried to walk the line between getting word out and pestering authors and followers. I hope I’ve done that.

Whatever success I’ve had, we now how the field of sixteen.  These are the four who moved on:

The Dragon Rider Vol. 1 by T.J. Weekes: Right from the start it looked like Weekes wasn’t going to be denied. She took the lead and never let it go. She ended with 13 people voting her all the way through to the winners’ circle and 52 votes overall. This is now the 13th seed.

Fate of the Big Bad Wolf by Neo Edmund: This cover earned the 14th seed with three voters calling it the best of all eight and 24 votes total.

The Other One by Amanda Jay earned the 15th seed with 20 total votes.

The Girl Who Could See by Kara Swanson: Swanson took the 16th seed with 20 total votes.

So it comes to this. Sixteen covers have been chosen, but only one will be named the 2017 M.L.S. Weech Book Cover of the Year.  Voting will start Jan. 1 and last two weeks.

My goal: I’m a fan of this sort of stuff, but I want it to actually mean something to the people involved. The best way to do this is to get as many votes as possible.  The Most votes we ever had in one bracket was 6,102 (May’s bracket). I want to shatter that record. My dream is 10,000 total votes. This is a (perhaps overly) ambitious goal.  First, there’s one less round.  In order to meet this goal, I’d need 2,500 people to vote all the way through. I can’t do this without all of your help plus that of the authors and artists.  I only have 400 or so followers here on my Blog, so I’d need all of you and seven of your friends to vote. I’d need half of my Twitter followers or three times my Facebook followers.  In short, I need help.

I expect (and hope) the authors call on their readers. But in order for this to be more about the quality of the book than the following of any one author, word needs to get out. Please help me make this as meaningful as possible. Even if it’s just 16 authors bringing their readers to the table, it’s enough, but it can be more with your help.

I look forward to seeing who will win.  I hope you are, too.

Thanks for reading,

V/R
Matt

The 2017 M.L.S. Weech Book Cover of the Year Wild Card Round Begins!

Greetings all,

I have to admit, I’m super excited about this project. I love tournaments, and I love book covers. I’m having a lot of fun with it, and I hope you all do as well.

In addition to giving you the link and some guidance, I wanted to give you some insight as to why these eight covers were chosen.  So here we go!

A Gathering of Shadows by V.E. Schwab: This is one of only two covers to receive more than 1,000 total votes. Unfortunately, it face the OTHER cover. Schwab’s 1,091 votes didn’t carry it through. It was the runner up, but didn’t make on it’s second time up. I still think it’s an amazing cover, and with 1,000 people behind it, I felt it deserved a final try.

The Dragon Rider Vol. 1 by T.J. Weekes: This was November’s runner up, and since I always put the runner up in the next tournament, I felt this time should be no different.

Age of Myth by Michael J. Sullivan: This book was one of only two to finish as runner up in two different brackets. A lot of people liked this book cover. So if this was one of two books to be a runner up twice, it only stands to reason the other would get in too, right?

The Girl Who Could See by Kara Swanson: Your darn right it stands to reason.

Anaerfell by Joshua Robertson and J.C. Boyd: This doesn’t surprise anyone who follows my blog, but I had to make the announcement. This book was in a downright fight with Bentz Deyo, and it was just fun to watch. The cover also received a total of 574 votes.

The Other One by Amanda Jay: It finished as a runner up and received a total of 433 votes.

To Brave the End by Frank Dorrian: Another runner up to fall just short, it received 348 votes in it’s first try.

Fate of the Big Bad Wolf by Neo Edmund: It also received 348 votes. It was a runner up, and even performed pretty well on its second try.

Three hundred votes is an important benchmark. Since I went to the two-week, total voting style, the winners all received a maximum of 350 votes. So my thinking was people who earned enough votes to win under the old system deserved a chance with the new one.

Now that’s said, let’s go over the basics:

This bracket has eight books. The top four selected will move on to the 2017 M.L.S. Weech Book Cover of the Year Bracket. Winning is good (and I use vote totals to create the matches in the BCOTY bracket, but all you really want is to finish in the top four.

You can vote all the way through the tournament, supporting the covers you like best through each round. I like to make sure people get the credit they deserve, so please show your support. Please vote and share as much as possible to get people a chance to pick their favorite.

As always, I’d appreciate it if you tag the authors and artists if you know 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.

Image taken from Pixabay.

If you are the author, let’s remember to be good sports! 1) Please feel free to message or contact me at any time. 2) Please feel free to like, share, text, ask for support, and call everyone you know. I absolutely want max participation. However, if you’re going to offer giveaways or prizes, please offer them for voting, not just voting for you.

Also, while your summoning your army of voting soldiers, please make sure you ask them to vote in every match. Part of the idea of this is to get exposure to as many artists and authors as possible. By all means, if you can get 1,000 people to vote for your book, do it. Just please also send some eyeballs to the other matches.

A final note to authors and artists: I currently have links to the books’ Amazon pages. If you’d prefer I switch that link to sign up for your newsletter or like your social media page or whatever, just send me the link and let me know. I want this to help you. I want this to be as helpful as possible, so whatever you need me to do to facilitate that, just let me know.

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

 

 

 

 

Announcing the November Book Cover of the Month!

Hello everyone,

It’s kind of cool to know I’ve been doing this for a year. We’ve picked out 12 amazing covers, and we still have some work to do (more on that below).  For now, the November Book Cover of the Month bracket has just wrapped up. This month had a great surge of voters. Three particular authors came out in force and really got their following involved, and that’s wonderful to me.

We had 4,177 votes this month.

This was honestly one of my favorite months to watch. We had some wonderful matches, and one of those matches has me clicking refresh even as I type this announcement. The Sweet Sixteen match between Prey till the End by S.L. Eaves and Living the Good Death by Scott Baron was back and forth for nearly a week. I don’t remember that match being more than five votes apart, and they both had more than 30 people vote their covers all the way to the winners’ circle.  It’s so close, I actually feel the need to type an announcement for each of those covers, and wait until the bracket closes to edit the winner in.  I had to check back and fourth, but it was fun watching it.

The November Book Cover of the Month is…

 

 

 

 

Living the Good Death by Scott Baron! If you’re curious about how I felt about the book, check out the Facebook post that I posted when this book first landed on the bracket, here.

Let’s look at the stats!

Baron received 268 total votes. He edged Eaves out of the sweet sixteen by two votes.

Here’s the part where people may upset. Though Eaves would have one had she beaten Baron, she didn’t. The runner up to this (the author who won her side of the bracket) was  The Dragon Rider Vol. 1 by T.J. Weekes. I did a lot of thinking, but the fact is Weekes earned the right to try again by winning her bracket. Sure, the NCAA may loop Alabama into the playoffs, and I can’t even say I’ve never done it (though that was an extreme even beyond this) before, but the Book Cover of the Year Wild Card Round only has one slot left, and Weekes earned it.  You have to be the runner up.  So Weekes will be the final entry into the aforementioned (and still to be discussed below) wild card round.

For Baron, he doesn’t have to stress over another “tryout” bracket. He’s in the main Book Cover of the Year Bracket.  Let’s look at the summary for his book.

 

 

Amazon:

(START BLURB)

Wearing nothing but psych ward pajamas and fluffy slippers, the odd girl wasn’t really dressed to kill. Being the Grim Reaper, however, she felt confident she could make it work.

Have you ever had one of those days? You know, the kind of day when things just don’t go your way. Like when your botched suicide attempt and claims of supernatural powers get you hauled to the emergency room, placed under observation, then transferred to a locked-down psych facility.

The girl who thought she was Death had failed miserably in her efforts to shed the troublesome human body in which she was trapped. The result? Finding herself surrounded by nutjobs, locked in a mental ward ruled by a humorless doctor with a Napoleon complex and a penchant for sleight of hand. Sure, she did technically bring it on herself, but how was she to know that trying to off herself in public and using her outside voice to proclaim she was Death incarnate would result in a psych ward lockdown?

With that problematic little blunder behind her, the concerns now vexing her were pressing. Escape, both from the mental hospital, as well as from this plane of existence, was vital, but equally so was addressing the other issue haunting her. The big one. The one that could end the world. The issue that with Death missing, people would rather inconveniently no longer die like they were supposed to. Eventually, things would hit critical mass. She just didn’t know when.

The situation was, well, grim, to say the very least. An irony not lost on the girl claiming to be the Death.

(END BLURB)

I’ve added Living the Good Death to my TBR. (For those who are new to the deal, I buy the Book Cover of the Month to read and review in the future. I bought Manning’s first cover, Howard’s cover, Deyo’s cover, Jones’s Cover, Hubert’s Cover,  MacNiven’s cover,  Jon del Arroz’s, Rob J. Hayes’s, Chris Philbrook’s, R.L. Week’s, and Manning’s second winning cover. They are also on my TBR. Manning’s review is here.  Howard’s review is here. Deyo’s review is here. The review for Jones’s book is here.  I’m currently reading Hubert’s book.
Here’s Baron’s Facebook page. Give it a like if you’re curious about him and his work.

I’ll try to find out who did that cover. I’m frankly behind my interviews, but I’m hopeful my vacation can give me a chance to get caught up.

But wait! There’s more!  Starting Dec. 18, my Book Cover of the Year Wild Card Round begins. Weekes and seven other authors who came up just short of winning a monthly bracket will have five days to duke it out for one last, last chance to get into the Book Cover of the Year bracket. The way it will work is the top four winners (as determined by Brackify) will earn the four remaining slots into the Sweet Sixteen of 2017 (I like the ring of that).

V.E. Schwab’s A Gathering of Shadows.

Michael J. Sullivan’s Age of Myth.

Kara Swanson’s The Girl Who Could See.

Joshua Robertson’s and J.C. Boyd’s Anaerfell (Which I’ve read and reviewed).

Amanda Jay’s The Other One.

Frank Dorrian’s To Brave the End.

And Neo Edmund’s Fate of the Big Bad Wolf.

When the bracket kicks off, I’ll post a summary of why each book made it into the Wild Card Round, but I felt it fair to announce who all eight were so, if they read this, they can start to summon their followers.

Now, that brings up some additional news. My first ever BOOK COVER OF THE YEAR tournament is coming. This will feature all 12 BCTOM winners and four “Wild Card” covers.

The Book Cover of the Year Bracket (for which I’m purchasing an actual trophy to send to the artist) will launch Jan. 1. It will be a two-week tournament. Then, I’ll launch the December Book Cover of the Month, which will start off a new year. Yes, that means I’ve decided to to this at least one more year. It’s exhausting, but matches like this one make it fun, and I’ll do it as long as it’s fun.

I will continue to identify and select covers for each day from Amazon’s New Release section for fantasy and science fiction. If you follow and like my Facebook page, you can see what covers will make the bracket.

Thanks for reading

Matt

The November Book Cover of the Month is Halfway Done!

Greetings all,

With just seven days left in this month’s bracket, it’s time to update you all on how things have been progressing. As I type this, this month started out solid, but it’s slowed way down. Any help getting word out and getting people to vote would be appreciated.

1,796 votes so far.

Prey till the End, by S.L. Eaves took the lead on Day 2, and has been pulling away ever since, but the most it would take anyone to take the throne is 15 voters putting them all the way through to the championship round.

Most Voted on so far: Prey till the End has the most total votes so far with 128.

Least Voted for: Empire of Dirt by Philip C. Quaintrell. This cover has 30 votes. I’d like to see it get a bit more support.

Eaves is slowly pulling away at the moment. He’s got some stiff competition from Living the Good Death in the Sweet 16. Eaves has a five-vote lead in that round, but if Scott Barron is going to catch Eaves, it only takes six people to do it. Eaves is also fighting a tough battle in the Final Four where Half-Asleep Guardians by Aurel Larue is only four votes behind, which means five people could change all that.

Mother of Chaos by John Patrick Kennedy is in second for the moment, but Kennedy is barely hanging on in every round of the bracket. He’s winning nail biters with no more than a four-vote lead in any one round.

This will be the only update for this type of bracket. I hope readers continue to support their authors by voting, liking, and sharing the bracket with as many people as possible.  You can vote at this address!

I’ll announce the winner is just seven days!

Thanks for reading,

Matt

The November Book Cover of the Month Starts Now!

Happy first everyone! If you’re curious or new, check out the Book Covers for December, January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, and October.

NOTE: We’re going to have two brackets. This month’s winner is automatically in the Book Cover of the Year bracket. However, the runner up will be placed in a Book Cover of the Year Wild Card Round bracket, which will launch the week before Christmas. Stay tuned for that.

November’s bracket has 30 new books. Chosen by R.S. Broadhead and The Fallen Queen by Janie Marie (last month’s 2nd and 3rd place covers) also get another shot at the title.

You can vote all the way through the tournament, supporting the covers you like best through each round. I like to make sure people get the credit they deserve, so please show your support. Please vote and share as much as possible to get people a chance to pick their favorite.

As always, I’d appreciate it if you tag the authors and artists if you know 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.

Image taken from Pixabay.

If you are the author, let’s remember to be good sports! 1) Please feel free to message or contact me at any time. 2) Please feel free to like, share, text, ask for support, and call everyone you know. I absolutely want max participation. However, if you’re going to offer giveaways or prizes, please offer them for voting, not just voting for you.

Also, while your summoning your army of voting soldiers, please make sure you ask them to vote in every match. Part of the idea of this is to get exposure to as many artists and authors as possible. By all means, if you can get 1,000 people to vote for your book, do it. Just please also send some eyeballs to the other matches.

A final note to authors and artists: I currently have links to the books’ Amazon pages. If you’d prefer I switch that link to sign up for your newsletter or like your social media page or whatever, just send me the link and let me know. I want this to help you. I want this to be as helpful as possible, so whatever you need me to do to facilitate that, just let me know.

The Book Cover of the Year Wild Card Bracket will kick off just as soon as the November Book Cover of the Month tournament ends. If you want to leave a comment for a cover you liked that didn’t get in, feel free. I’ll consider the options, though I think the ones I’m looking at now all have a justifiable right to be consider wild card entrants.

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