Were you hankering for some cover snark? How about the entries for our Cover Contest instead?
Below, a collection of The Big Kahuna Contest: Amateur Division entries – and a special addendum. In addition to our Amazon gift certificate prize, one of our Professional Division contestants, April Martinez, has offered to make the winning cover into a full flat with the spine and back. So not only will you be buying books to make your TBR topple over on to your head, but you’ll have a fine display piece of your cover art. Thanks, April!
So, without further ado, have a look at our Amateur Division covers. This ain’t Cook County, Illinois, so please, vote once, and as early or late as your please. Just email your vote for the Amateur division to Sarah AND Candy by July 29, midnight PDT. Click on the thumbnails for full-sized versions of the covers.
To refresh your memory, here is a reprint of our fine cover copy by which these covers were inspired.
A Desperate Secret…
Chase Thurston Spencer Hastings V is a mild-mannered stock broker by day, but at night, he desperately tries to lock himself in his apartment, even as he wakes up every morning with blood on his trousers, fur clutched between his hands, and no knowledge of his activities the night before.
A Covert Operative…
Vaniqa Lorcet Valtrex is a princess working undercover without the protection of her kingdom, seeking the truth about a mysterious family of murderers who appear, strike, and dissolve into mist. She’s chased the rumors of their existence to New York, where she thinks she’s found the heir to their powerful heritage—and incredibly hairy feet.
A Perfect Opportunity for Love…
From her perch in a penthouse across the street from his, Vaniqa spends her every moment watching the mysterious man, waiting for her chance to avenge her best friend’s sister’s boyfriend’s brother’s girlfriend.
Update:
Note: Professional Division will be up later today, so hold on to the edge of your seat or something. There’s more to come!
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Ohmigod, some of these are so much better than the covers you’ve been snarking!
I don’t want to hear anymore publisher whining about “We’re doing the best we can with our limited resources!”
These amateur covers blow that argument to pieces. Sure, some are just laugh out loud funny, but others look every bit as professional as what’s on the bookracks.
I’m off to vote.
Sorry, I’m a little dense: Am I voting for which cover I’d like to see on a published book? Or the one that is cheesily over the top and snarky-worthy? Some seem to be intentionally ridiculous, while others are a million times better than the Poser covers that you see on ebooks.
I am impressed—even the worst among these is at least equivalent to some you see from e-pubs, but a few of these could easily be spotted on NY print books. Great job, bitches!
Well, I would say as one of the amateurs (third row, rightmost, you’d be mad to vote for me, especially when you can’t even see the fur real well at either of those sizes!) I’m not sure I would have wanted to spend the amount of time on it I did—I guess about 1/2 to 3/4 of day in the dread Poser and The Gimp—if I had to do these for a living at what I would guess your average e-publisher would be comfortable paying.
And certainly, if I had spent yet more time than that, it could easily have been better, even given my terrible trial-and-error level of skill. After all, I have a whole list of stuff that’s wrong with it, or could have been added 🙂
Presumably tho’, a pro would have the mad-skillz that I really really don’t and could hopefully bring the time downward enough to make it a paying proposition.
Dunno :/
Favorites, “Love’s Blasted Ratfink”, “Savage Deception”, and “His Savage Secret” even tho’ that one seems to be set in London rather than New York for some mysterious reason…
…like I said you’d be mad to vote for me. Maaaaaad!
Reading the cover quotes from Amelia Elias was killing me. OMG.
:::wipes tears :::
OMG, these are too funny!!! I can’t pick just one!!
sweet Jesus, Amelia Elias has a career as a cover quoter. . .
My stomach, she hurts from laughing.
Wow. I am in awe of the Photoshop goddesses. *kowtows*
‘His Savage Secret’ is beautiful! I love covers of this kind – where it sets the scene, and only hints at the glasses-sporting hottie and lion.
‘Savage Destiny’ is a great example of good Poser art. (Who knew it existed?) I did a double-take, thinking it was a photo! The perspective of the buildings is cool, especially since the viewer is looking up at them, overwhelmed, perhaps, by the savage destiny in store for Hunk FitzPixel/Thurston V. whatever.
‘Love’s Blasted Ratfink’ looks sexy, understated, and monochromatic – three of my favorite things.
Ooh! And ‘Savage Deception’ is wonderful, too!
Now I want to somehow set these as my screensaver.
Oh my lord, some of those were SOOOO freaking hilarious…Amelia Elias, when I publish, I want your quote on my cover. LOL
I’m still giggling…
Yeah, that photo for Love’s Blasted Ratfink just does me in. I want to live in their skin for a few minutes.
These are wonderful, and they’re not even the professional submissions. Absolutely fantastic imaginations and talent!
It didn’t say anywhere that the story was set in New York, and there are stockbrokers and penthouses in London. Admittedly, I don’t think a British stockbroker with ‘upper crust lineage’ would be called Chase Thurston Spencer Hastings V, but it is a beautiful cover.
On Hot Pursuit [sic] looks very professional too. I can imagine both of those on print books. Savage Deception‘s beginning to look more like a really good e-book cover and whoever did Savage Wolf Love should get credit for managing to cram so many elements from the blurb onto the cover.
They’re all good. Some seem to be about other books, not the one described in the competition blurb, but they’re still funny.
Hey, Washatonians feel slighted, Cook County is small potatoes compared to King County, we are in the top three nationally for election fraud with no investigation in sight.
Off my soapbox now…drinking your morning tea while reading the Luridly Savage covers is not good, could be downright messy!
Honorable mentions: Savage Storm, lovely traditional and lifelike art. His Savage Secret, just enough & artist didn’t hang herself on her own rope. In Hot Pursuit, great non traditional art. Savage Destiny, like the reversal of male & female role. Loves Blasted Ratfink, it works & its fun. Catchy title.
Wow. I’m so glad I didn’t enter—I had a sneaking suspicion I’d get my ass kicked, and I can see I was right.
Then again, getting my ass kicked by a bunch of women does feature prominently in some of my fantasies . . .
Anyway: I love Pussi McSavage’s cover, the one with the guy in glasses getting the nipple massage. Us guys in glasses don’t get nearly enough nipple massages. Thanks for righting an ancient wrong, Pussi!
Oops! Got distracted and missed one: Savage Deception, fun & eyecatching I couldn’t resist picking it up at the bookstore.
Now I have to choose just one???
You go Doug, it’s a universal right we all deserve!
Gonna give props to Savage Cravings While Watching and Waiting. The joke isn’t as obvious as the other title blurbs, but now I have this fantastic image of Ms Spy Princess sitting around, waiting for something to happen… and just needing a chocolate fix. What else do these people do while they’re standing there waiting for love?
Wow! These are some amazing covers! Good Luck to all the entries!
Wow! These are gooooooooood.
I like several of the covers, but “Savage Amnesia” gets my vote for best title. It just captures the essence of snark.
Luridly Savage is my hero!
I like ‘Love’s Blasted Ratfink’.
Aw hell, the next time I hear another publisher saying “Covers are hard and expensive ::whinewhinewhine::” I’ll just point them here. Some of these covers are practically professional quality and I’d buy the book based off them.
and “His Savage Secret†even tho’ that one seems to be set in London rather than New York for some mysterious reason…
*wince* But… they have stock brokers in London, too! And his name just sounded really British to me. Also, I wanted to make him a Werelion instead of a Werewolf, and I figured the idea of a WereLion guy worked better in Brition because of the use of the lion in heraldry. After he wakes up in his appartment with fur and blood on him, he could think back to the lion on his family’s crest, and how his dear dad used to disappear a couple nights a month, too, and wonder… 🙂
‘Chase’ doesn’t sound like a very British name to me. I’ve never met anyone called that, anyway. And, similarly, no-one uses a numeral at the end of their name. Aristocrats will have a number in their full title, such as the xth Duke/Earl/Marquis etc of y, but as far as I know they don’t use the number often, and commoners aren’t numbered at all.
But I liked the lions, so I assumed he might be an American working in London, or perhaps half-American, half-English?
Many of these are actually quite beautiful. I am very impressed!
‘Chase’ doesn’t sound like a very British name to me. I’ve never met anyone called that, anyway. And, similarly, no-one uses a numeral at the end of their name. Aristocrats will have a number in their full title, such as the xth Duke/Earl/Marquis etc of y, but as far as I know they don’t use the number often, and commoners aren’t numbered at all.
Ah, okay. I didn’t know that. I was pretty much free-associating from limited knowledge. I really should have Googled it before putting it on the cover, though! Thanks for pointing it out and giving me the straight dope re: naming conventions in Britain.
But I liked the lions, so I assumed he might be an American working in London, or perhaps half-American, half-English?
Sure! That totally works. 🙂
Er, that smiley kind of weirds me out. It looks like its rollling its eyes or something. So, in a paranoid effort not to be misunderstood, I’m gonna ask you to imagine I used this one instead, please: 🙂
So, there are 16 amateur covers here, right? Because at least 7 look professional.
I like how Her Savage Consort uses I *think* poser without making me want to heave. It’s subtle and yet, there’s fur on the guys arm – cool.
I was going to do a stick drawing of a cover and jpeg it over as a joke but the laugh would definitely have been on me!
Really well done guys!!
CindyS
Hey! Someone used my MadLib! (Love’s Smegging Spacebug) Was that an attempt to win my vote? Cause it might work.
These are really, very good. And they’re amateurs. I don’t wanna hear one. more. whiny. word. from ebook publishers about their crappy covers. This is proof positive that decent covers *can* be created with limited time and resources.
I want to get a stamp made of the quote above and stamp it across the covers of a great many of the novels I’ve read, including every historical printed before 1993.
I adore Amelia Elias’s cover quotes.
I also enjoyed the madlibs references – especially the shout-out to
my
Love’s Repetitive Rash.
Wow. Many of these covers look professional or pretty close, and I’d pick these up over the other cheesy covers that the “poor me” pubs have put out.
Man, these are some great covers, I love some of these quotes. I’m thinking, wow I should have thought up something clever like that, LOL. Savage Destiny is actually a photo, not a poser, just doctored up a bit 😉
I love the colors in His Savage Secret. Savage Deception and In Hot Pursuit are great!
Thank you, Gurta Belle McWanker. My desk looks much better with diet soda sprayed all over it…freaking savage were-hobbits.
These definitely raise the bar on “amateur” design. The biggest giveaway to non-pro is the typefaces (yeah, text is what I do for a living), but most of these could easily appear on bookshelves with very minor tweaking.
The humor is brilliant. Oh, lawsy, you folks are great. “No one writes like Luridly Savage, and thank God for that!” just about killed me.
Congratulations to all the designers for your mad skillz and even madder wit!
In your face, whiny epublishers!
Is it just me, or is the dude in Hostile Takeover Dara Joy’s favorite cover model?!? 🙂
I joined up about the same day as the dealine, so I didn’t get a chance to participate, but I can’t wait til you all do this again. I’m definitely going to participate!
I have to say that Pussi McStrange’s Savage Wolf Love has got the sexiest guy with glasses I’ve seen in a while! Yum! I want that one!
It was too hard to choose. I wanted to vote for three or four of them 🙁
Put up or shut up … This contest has certainly proved the point of everyone who groans at the horrible Poser golems. There’s no excuse. I have to wonder what other wonders you’d have received if the deadline had been a little longer. (Length does sometimes matter…)
Every one of these is as good as or better than 75% of the stuff I’ve seen up for real (and the blurbs are far superior!) I can’t wait for the professional efforts!
I know a place that will make all “amateur” cover designers take heart—and maybe one where they should offer their services. Trust me. Every last one of you, artists and afficiandos alike, should take a little trip over to this special place, called Venus Press (dot com). It will be well worth your time and minor effort. Many, many wonders await you there.
We all know that many of the redheaded stepchildren of cover design reside with ebook publishers. But these…these are the deformed redheaded stepchildren. I advise you all to empty your bladders first, however. That done, proceed to the BDSM/Domination dormitory. Then, tour the Paranormal section—where you will see (and your eyes will not be deceiving you) Harry Belafonte as a vampire.
I LOVE the Bitches’ entries…but, oh, with a heavy heart for those poor covers that are so easily outshone.