The Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off (#SPFBO) 3 is set to begin on July 1! Read all about it on Mark Lawrence’s blog, or check out our rundown of how Fantasy-Faction will be handling Round One!
Last year’s cover contest was a huge success. Each of the ten bloggers nominated the top three covers from their batch before voting for their favourites from the final pool of thirty. There were some truly stunning gems fighting for the title, which eventually went to Michael R. Miller’s entry The Dragon’s Blade: The Reborn King.
Once again, the standard of entries looks to be incredibly high. Some of these covers are bloody gorgeous, and the team had a tough time choosing just three! In the end it was really close (our tastes differ fairly widely!), and I’ll post some of our favourite runners up below. First, though, this should give you an idea of how difficult our job has been:
I don’t know about you, but I’m loving the proliferation of blues and purples amongst our bunch. If, like me, your entire artistic repertoire consists of, ‘Ooooh – pretty colours!’ then I’m sure you agree that this is a pretty gorgeous selection.
Speaking of which… without further ado, here’s our top three entries for this year’s cover contest:
Congratulations to these bad boys!
- Empire of Chains by Ryan Mueller
- The Dragon Hunter and the Mage by V. R. Cardoso
- Spellslinger by Joseph J. Bailey
Like I said, it was a tough choice, and our group voting system meant that there were only one or two votes between some of the runners up. Here are some of those we liked a lot, but which lost out by just a few votes:
Congratulations to everyone mentioned – and best of luck to everyone entered in the contest!
To check out the other entries, go to Mark Lawrence’s blog. Be sure to come back and let us know what you think!
For more about the #SPFBO 3, read our introduction post here.
If you’ve been following the previous SPFBO then let us know about any entries that have caught your fancy! Join the discussion on social media (there’s a Facebook group here) and weigh in with your own opinions using the hashtag #SPFBO.
Richard Marpole
Jennie Ivins
FYI. Gene Molica is about to start doing covers using his stock art. They won’t be cheap, but they’ll be within reason. When he gets it going I’ll let you know.
Thank you for your selection of my cover, though the credit really goes to the great designers of Deranged Doctor Design. They gave me a cover that turned out even better than I thought it would. There’s a long wait for their cover art, but the wait is worth it.
Good luck to everyone in the competition in general. There are a lot of great books this year.
Many thanks for the nomination of the cover art for Spellslinger!
Echoing Ryan, the credit for the beautiful cover art goes to Rodrigo González Toledo. I should also add that Alisha at Damonza did the striking typography.
Also, thank you for taking the time to review our work in this year’s SPFBO!
Good luck all!