Houston Bay Area RWA

Contest | FAQ -- General

FAQ -- General

Houston Bay Area RWA
HBA programs, benefits, and officers
Judge a Book by Its Cover contest
Upcoming meetings and special events
Meet the Authors
Book reviews written by HBA members
Articles on writing and the writing life, by our members
Valuable resources, submitted by our members
Join HBA
E-mail and snail mail information
Members Only

 

Houston Bay Area is dedicated to encouraging and supporting the romance writers, both published and aspiring, in its membership.

  

General questions may be answered here.

 

Who came up with the idea of a cover contest?

The idea for the Judge a Book By Its Cover Contest was proposed by Donna Grant, who was the RWA® 2006 National PRO Liaison. Donna graciously allowed Houston Bay Area to run with the idea as a fundraiser for our growing chapter. She's an active member of several chapters, including our sister Houston chapter, West Houston RWA®.

HBA is grateful to Donna for her generosity in sharing her idea.

Why run it all online?

The designers of the contest wanted to make it possible for authors from countries other than the U.S. to participate, and for booksellers in those countries to judge as well. That meant we couldn't mail anything anywhere unless we wanted to charge an exorbitant entry fee to cover the cost of international postage.

By going online, we keep our fee low and our international participation high.

How does the contest work?

After the entrants have uploaded their covers, the judging begins. Judges are booksellers from the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand.

Each entry is scored according to how the bookseller believes his or her customers would respond to the cover art:

  • Buy it just for the cover
  • Probably buy it
  • Read the back cover or pages before buying
  • Look, but not pick it up
  • Ignore or dislike it

Judges' scores will be kept confidential. The winners will be announced on February 6, 2008 and the winning covers will be published in a full-page, color ad in the April 2008 Romance Writers Report.

Who are the bookseller judges?

Houston Bay Area is grateful to all the booksellers who took the time to help us develop our judging scale and to judge the entries. We're fortunate to have judges from the United States, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, and Australia.

In the United States

   

A Novel Place

 

 

In Australia

 

In New Zealand

 

In the United Kingdom

 

 

More questions? Ask us and we'll add to this FAQ!