Contest! Design a book cover for THE FAIRY TALE TRAP

My book, THE FAIRY TALE TRAP is due to come out at the end of the year, but it needs a cover! Unfortunately, I have little to no talent for visual art. Lucky thing I have friends who can do amazing things.

Contest time!

What do you get out of it?

Everyone who scores well in the contest will get a copy of THE FAIRY TALE TRAP ebook.

The winner will get a feature on my blog (where you can show off your portfolio, website, etc...), their name and website in the acknowledgements, and of course, the chance to get your art on the cover of THE FAIRY TALE TRAP.

The winner also gets a $25 Amazon gift card.

Rules:
Original art must be submitted as an TFF or JPG file.

Requirements for the size of your cover art:
• Image dimensions of at least 500 by 800 pixels.
• A maximum of 2000 pixels on the longest side is preferred
• Ideal height/width ratio of 1.6
• Save at 72 dots per inch (dpi) for optimal viewing on the web [I don’t know what this means. I pretty much copied this from Amazon's publishing site. I figure they know what they're doing.]

All submission must be received no later than midnight, on December 10th, 2011.

Submitted artwork must be your original creation. You must have full rights to all material used. (Public domain is fine to use.)

Yes, you may submit multiple entries.

Your cover needs to have the title: ‘The Fairy Tale Trap’ plainly visible and large enough to read the title when the image is reduced to a thumbnail. The author's name, ‘Emily Casey’ should also be plainly visible.

Book covers will be judged by Emily Casey and/or a panel selected by Emily Casey and the voting may be opened to the public. All submissions to be sent by email to emilycaseysmusings@gmail.com

Please include your name, age, email address, and website.

Judging Criteria:

Marketability: 35 points

• Is the cover aimed toward the target audience? (Girls age 12-18)
• Does the cover make it clear that this is a young adult fantasy book?
• Is the title largely visible, even when shrunk down to the size of a postage stamp?
• Is the writing legible on the cover?
• Does the cover bring out emotion and/or reflect a mood in the viewer (that relates to the book)?
• Is it clean and professional-looking?

Overall Visual Appeal: 40 points

How it Captures the Essence of the Book: 25 points

Tips:

I’m putting up the first chapters of The Fairy Tale Trap so you can get a feel for the tone, setting, and characters of the book. I highly recommend you read it before you start! Some things to note:

• Ivy’s dad is Asian. Her mom is Anglo/White.
• Ivy’s personality and attitude vs. the setting
• This book is all about Beauty and the Beast, with a twist.

Cover art with white or very light backgrounds can seem to disappear against white background. Adding a very narrow (3-4 pixel) border in medium gray will define the boundaries of the cover.

Although I've never used them, I've heard GIMP and Scribus are good tools for making a book cover. Since this is an ebook, you don't need to worry about designing the spine or back cover. :)

Good luck!

Let me know if you decide to enter so I can cheer for you!

Stuff I have to put on here to avoid headaches and lawsuits:

By entering this Contest, each contestant consents to the use of his/her name, and/or artwork in any merchandise, advertisements, educational materials, publicity, or other related use carried out or produced by Emily Casey and advertising and promotional agencies without further notice or compensation. Emily Casey can publish or decline to publish, or use or decline to use, any submitted artwork at her sole discretion. The winner relinquishes the rights to use and publish the submitted artwork.