Last year I had a mini-contest of sorts for a free cover, and ended up giving away two. More about the motivation behind the giveaway and specifics as to what I was looking for here.
I plan on doing this again for 2017 and announcing the winner just before the holidays, so send me a short synopsis of your project and your ideas for a cover either through comments below or by emailing me here. If it isn’t clear why your project supports diversity in some way (themes, main character, etc.), add a note saying why you would like to be chosen.
This year I’d love to do a cover for a kickass female main character, bonus points for science fiction and bonus points as well for a POC main character. It’s increasingly not a great time to be a young woman or girl right now, and I would love to do some art featuring a strong, sassy, tech-y woman to give us all hope for a better tomorrow.
As I said last year, representation is important and I would have killed for more diverse books when I was growing up…stuck in a small cow town in Northern California I dreamed of other worlds, I dreamed of starships, I dreamed of anything other than what I could see around me. Give me kickass girls with dreams. :)
EDIT: Winners have been chosen and notified, thank you SO much to all who entered! You guys rock so hard.
The Guildsmen Vol III – Path of the Amber Storm by Shawn M Becker
The continuation of Mystrianna and Tair’Lianne’s adventures with the famed Guildsmen. Myst and Tair must compete within a male-dominated guild – one of which is quite suited for this form of life, while the other wishes only to make her friend happy and deal with the growing confusion that lies in her heart. Together, with the other initiates of this once famous band of heroes, they seek the third Gemstone of Val’Cryys – hidden in a land of a strict militant monarchy. Kadoris is a land on the brink of war, a land dedicated to the eradication of all magic. The ruler of this land is a fanatic of war in league with the church of state, but it is his daughter that the Guildsmen turn to. Saerle Abelaard is an anomaly within her royal family. She is a warrior where women are forced to be weak, she belongs to a race that abhors magic, yet has the ability to wield it. Saerle has hidden her magic, concealed her pride, and ignored the amber fire burning within her to make amends to her family for a mistake she made twenty years before.
And when the fruits of that mistake suddenly return to her homeland, pleading for her assistance, Saerle must once again face her true self, her past, and the magic within.
My contemporary romance novel is about a chance meeting set in Ireland. My female protagonist is a black woman in her early 30s and her love interest is an Irish man in this late 30s. Here are the makings of a back cover blurb:
Loving Her Write (working title)
She loses her publishing job and discovers her fiance is cheating on her. In a span of 48 hours. To avoid losing her sanity as well, Antonia Keaton drops everything and runs away to Ireland. Instead of crying at her once-honeymoon destination, she decides to continue the novel she’s long neglected. No distractions, no men, just rolling green hills. . . and blank pages.
He enjoys teaching at the University of Galway, but Dr. Aiden Byrnes is missing something from his life. When his colleague abruptly dumps him for a chance to climb the academic ladder, he retreats to the West counties of Ireland to lick his wounds. The brutal scenery of the wild Atlantic will clear his head and make him forget.
Except there’s just one new distraction. The beautiful woman staying next door to his cottage rental could be the distraction they both need.
My science fiction novella DESTINY’S FATE is set in a world where corporations own colony planets. Destiny is the granddaughter of colonists who died before paying their “transport debt.” She is indentured to a corporation called “The Quincunx” and works as a freight pilot but has a side hustle in alien artifacts which leads her to a group of characters who are–depending on your perspective–freedom fighters or terrorists when she finds an artifact that has become an object out of legend sought by the Quincunx for its symbolic value and sought by others for its religious meaning.
Destiny is of African-American heritage, but has grown up two generations away from Earth. That sample cover would actually work amazingly well for the story as is.
Destiny is determined to free herself from corporate bondage but also wants to discover the truth behind the artifacts she sells, many of which were left by the original inhabitants of the planets the Quincunx conquered/commandeered/claimed. Her curiosity about these artifacts has brought her in touch with a diverse group of people she would not have ordinarily met, including an Asian scholar who works for the Chinese consortium that rivals the Quincunx for control of their sector of space. (I have several novellas set in the Chinese colonial universe, including Frontier, Beixing, and Zhanghai.)
In the end, Destiny must weigh her own wants and needs against a larger purpose and a larger destiny.