Best Book Cover Award

[yogi]

There are awards presented to book cover designers in several categories. The above is September's winner in the e-book Fiction category. I looked through all 115 entries and was taken back by the challenge of picking out the best of the lot. I have no idea what a great cover looks like but I'll not dispute the selection from the article.

http://www.thebookdesigner.com/2015/10/ ... mber-2015/

[Kellemora]

Hi Yogi - I just happen to be a book cover contest judge myself.

Although I agree the above book cover is very appealing, based on the specific points the book covers we judge must pass, it would not score near the top in our monthly contests, but it wouldn't score low either.

Each book I judge is scored in four major categories consisting of five specific elements in each category.
The major categories are: Presentation, Typography, Innovation, and Distinctions.
Where the book displayed fails most is in the Typography category, Orientation element.

Each group holding a contest has its own set of criteria for what is a good cover and what is not.
I think the above cover is great, but realize it does not meet the criteria of the contest elements of those I judge.
It would score high, but not in the top selections that would move on to the final harder elements.
When using a grading system such as we use, it is not uncommon for a book cover which appears bad to earn a high score by having all the elements dead on. Failing one or two points in the visual categories are picked up by having things just so very perfect in the other category elements.

I guess it all depends on what criteria the judges are obliged to follow. Ours is cut n dried and overly strict.

[Icey]

I think Christina's book has a lovely cover, apart from the title and her name being encircled in the manner it is. Had that been mine, I'd have wanted it across the top in gold or black lettering, in keeping with the era, but that just shows that everyone sees things differently.

[yogi]

I knew you were a book cover judge Gary and that's one reason I posted this article. I wanted to see what you thought of the awards. Thank you for your contribution and enlightenment.

[pilvikki]

funny enough, I don't like it, due the same thing icy said. the 'medallion' with the print is too intrusive somehow.

[Icey]

Yes, "medallion" was the word I was looking for. : )

[Kellemora]

Hi Yogi

Personally, I love the RICH look of this cover, the texture, hues, and tone are all most appealing.
I love the antique ornamental door on the left, however the pinked edge on the right is a bit too much.

The first problem here is what grabs the readers attention and makes a book jump off the shelf?
True, deep and rich are what many are looking for. But unless it grabs their attention, they will overlook the book.

The first judging category is PRESENTATION, and the first Element judged is Creativity. On a scale of 1 to 5, this cover only earns 3 points, possibly 4 points.
It does pick up a full 5 points in each Element of Orientation, Visual, and Imaging Excellence. It would also get the Rare score of 5 points for Color Design.
So you see, it is holding its own better than most in the initial Category, but after this first Category, it begins to fail in too many Elements to maintain a foothold in the top selections.

Doing only a preliminary visual scan. If you lined five or more books side by side on a shelf, then stood back, turned around and glanced at the shelf, which book jumps out at you first? second? and in some cases third?

The way some contests are run, are really unfair because they do just as I mentioned. They line up books and pick each one in order. This is how some books with only an initial rating of 3 end up with a rating of 5, because it was the best 3 of the whole row of 3's.
If you do want to judge using a first round visual, it is best to do so using Control Covers that all books are compared to.
This way you don't have poor covers compared with poor covers, and excellent covers compared to other excellent covers, causing an excellent cover to rate lower than it should.

In your opinion, would the book cover you displayed, be one of those that jumps off the shelf and captures your attention? It may be a beautiful cover, but does it stand out in a crowd?
Most books are purchased on-line these days. If this cover was reduced to a Thumbnail, will the subtext be readable?
If only the top 1/3 of the book was displayed, does it have enough appeal in the upper portion to catch your attention.

As I said, the contest I am judging for is strict, and looks at all the elements necessary to grab a readers attention and make an on-line sale. Even so, due to authors already being contest winners, or their books previously selected for a free promotion, many of the highest scoring books are now disqualified from the contest for 6 or 12 months. This is to give all authors a chance to have their book promoted for free, provided they scored high enough to be selected. So, even though we are strict, we are also fair. One author cannot hog the winners circle.

[Icey]

Interesting Gary. Thanks for that.

[pilvikki]

around here you learn something every day!

[Icey]

You do. That's one of the reasons I like it.

[Kellemora]

Believe me, it is NOT a phun job to have to do.
Grading an average of 50 new books every month, with over 20 elements being scored from over 100 possible grades, not only takes time, but then you have to deal with those who think their cover is the cats meow who didn't win or score very high.
What is normally done on the book cover of a famous author is a strict no no on the book cover of an unknown author.

James Patterson can have his name in BOLD at the TOP of the book cover, and larger than the Title of the Book.
If an Indie author does the same, it will kill sales faster than standing on a church pew during services yelling BUY MY BOOK to the congregation, the same applies to Twitter. Both places are just as inappropriate to yell BUY MY BOOK.

Since we only judge Indie authored books, their covers must meet certain criteria, which is different than the criteria for well known authors. Title must be larger than the authors name. Title must appear, or at least start in the top 1/4 of the book cover. Authors name must be in the bottom quarter of the book cover.

Here is how Title/Author Orientation is judged for our contest.
Title Top Quarter, Author Bottom Quarter scores the highest with 5 points.
Title Top Quarter, Author elsewhere - 4 points.
Title below Top Quarter, Author lower than Title - 3 points.
Author in Top Quarter, Title in Bottom Quarter - 2 points.
All other locations, including vertical - 1 point.

The above comes after Proportional Scale where the font sizes used for the title and author name are judged.
If the Book Title is larger and uses a heavier font than the Author Name, regardless of location on the book, it scores 5 points. If the Indie Authors name is larger and heavier font than the Book Title, it scores 1 point. Between these two extremes is 4, 3, and 2, points.

There are a lot of elements I have to judge for each book. Because we use a grading system with scores, it is not uncommon for books who score low in the appeal department, pick up in the other departments and end up with a score higher than some more visually appealing books.

One fellow once said, you can have the coolest and most sought after car in the world.
However, if every fender has major damage, you probably couldn't give the car away for free to a salvage yard.
The same applies to books. If the elements which cue buyers to purchase are not present, it doesn't even make good fuel for the furnace.

[Icey]

Wow, there's a lot to it, isn't there? You must know your stuff Gary.

[Kellemora]

I have a spreadsheet and questionnaire I go by. It is very time consuming though.

[Icey]

I bet. I didn't realise that covers were judged, let alone all that goes into it.

[Kellemora]

I know some groups don't go to as much trouble as we do. They just simply line all the entries up along a wall and pick the one they visually like best.
Other times, it is who supported the group the most who has a shot at the winners circle.
Because our contest is multi-genre, and each genre has its own special considerations, we have to take that into consideration in our questions as well.
We do have a few elements which we do not judge, because it applies to whether or not the theme of the cover fits the content of the story. Since we are only judging the cover on its own merit, those elements are eliminated from the questionnaire we use.

[Icey]

I don't know whether we have those sort of competitions in the UK or not, but maps're getting in on the act now. In March of this year, a contest was run online to develop a good cover for ordnance survey maps - http://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/blog/20 ... mpetition/

[Kellemora]

Oh my Icey - Most of the more noteworthy literary contests originate in the UK, which include the book cover contests.

If I recall the last time I saw a list of entry forms, UK was at the top, followed by France, US, Japan, etc.
I think the reason why is books are promoted differently in the UK than they are here.
A UK ad for a book often lists several awards, honorable mentions, and selected as finalists.
An ad here in the US is often not much more than BUY MY BOOK, BUY MY BOOK...

In the US, only about 1 out of 25 contest winners will send a thank you note to the contest provider.
In the UK, it is more like 1 out of 5. Something to be very proud of!

[Icey]

Well thanks Gary. I had no idea that any of this went on, so it interested me to learn something.

[Kellemora]

I'm actually surprised so much emphasis is placed on book covers.
Although the vast majority of bookstores, place as many books as possible with the covers facing out. This is only true for the books they buy several copies of the same book. All the rest are shelved with the Spine facing out.
Almost all used bookstores, as well as libraries, shelve books with the Spine facing out.

So in my opinion, the Spine of a book should be treated with the same care and precision as the face.

I decided to do a little research to see if there was much said about book spine design and necessary elements.

Looks like I'm not the only one who feels the spine is just as important as the cover. Found hundreds of articles, and several contests which either include the spine in their judging, or judge only the spines themselves.

We only judge the cover because the contest is geared primarily to Indie e-books, having a print book is a plus, but only the cover is what we judge.

Here is something you may be interested in that we don't see much of anymore. It's called Fore-edge Painting.
I hunted around and found a link to show what I mean.
http://twistedsifter.com/2013/09/hidden ... -of-books/

I prefer the fore-edge painting which is hidden by gold leaf, so the only way to see the image is to open the book or fan the edge.

A small science library back home, not a part of the public library system, used to mark every book they owned with a rubber stamp, but you could not see what it said unless you fanned the pages. The purpose was to reduce theft of their books, by those who wanted to keep them, but claimed they got lost somewhere.
I saw them adding their stamp to some newer books they recently obtained, and it was a simple but interesting process they used.
The book cover was opened and a bar clamp placed near the spine.
The open edge of the book was placed in another clamp loosely at first, with about three inches of the book sticking out, then they would lower the clamped spine edge and lock it down to the base plate.
Then the front clamp was tightened to prevent the pages from shifting while they applied their library stamp.
The stamp itself was not flat, looked more like an old curved ink blotter holder with a rubber faced stamp.
After rolling it back and forth on a stamp pad, they started at the top and slowly rolled the stamp down to leave the ink on the pages. Then they waited for about 30 seconds before removing the book and starting on the next.
When the book is closed, it left like a design on the edge, but nothing actually readable until you fanned the pages.
At the time I saw this many years ago, I had never heard of fore-edge printing, although I had seen it on some old books, but those looked like they were just printed on the edge of the book after it was made, not fanned. In fact, if you fanned the pages, you had white lines through the image, so it was meant to seen with the book closed.

If you go to the link, you will see both types. A bible laying open has a beautiful design.

Lot of neat stuff out there if you are lucky enough to ever see any of it.

[Icey]

Hi Gary,

Oooh, aren't those fore-edge paintings beautiful? The Bible one looks lovely, and I know what you mean about these sort of things, but'd never actually seen any until you posted the link. Fantastic.

I agree with you that the spines should be attractive to prospective buyers/readers, but I don't know about over in the US. Here, when new books hit the shelves, they're positioned face up on tables, so that the customer doesn't have to ask where they are, or can see at a glance what newbies're on offer. The piles're all laid out in the same way, so as someone picks a book up, the next one shows the front cover, and so on.