Calling all #YA authors: sign up for January's Cover Wars. Starts at just $5.

The following is updated material.

Although the theme for January will be YA (young adult), I'm taking Cover Wars in a different direction for the year. I want to be able to connect one month's Cover Wars to the next, and strictly following the theme of the month won't really allow those options to be viable.

If you are new to Cover Wars, check out December's Cover Wars Post.

The New Direction

From this point forward any book can be put into the running each month. There's a few who have already signed up for January, but their covers aren't strictly YA in my opinion ... so they should be able to run against any other book with a great cover.

Why am I doing this?

For several reasons.

Cover Wars is most successful when there are a lot of authors/books in the running (due to the community driven traffic). Getting enough books in the competition is difficult enough as it is without giving authors a genre roadblock.
By taking genre out of the equation, book covers can easily defend their title. Put simply, if you win Cover Wars, that same book gets a free entry into the next month.
Then the fun challenge is for the other authors to knock the winning book off its pedestal.
Though I won't offer this right away since I'm not ready logistically, I'm not opposed to the idea of offering multiple month packages. For example, buy 3 months and get the 4th free. Winning any of those months will simply extend your paid coverage.

WHAT DO YOU GET IF YOU WIN?

The following is for January only since I will do away with these options starting in February. I'm having enough trouble keeping track of my paying clients, much less these free offerings. The competition model designed above should work better with my sanity and make Cover Wars more fun.

There are two options for prizes: more promotion on this site—promo post, tweets to promote that post, and a few tweets to promote the book directly on Amazon. The second option is to get your money back. In fact, I'll throw in an extra $5. To state it clearly, if you pay $5 to get in, you get $10 back. If you pay $15 to get in the Cover Wars competition (and Scavenger Hunt), you get $20 back. (If you buy one of the add-on packages, you still only get $20 back)

HOW DOES COVER WARS WORK?

The power behind Cover Wars is the community driven traffic. You bring your family, friends, and anyone else you can get—have them come to the site to vote for your book every day. By doing this you are helping your fellow competitors. Exposure for all!

Yes, someone will win something (either more promotion or some money back), but the exposure factor cannot be denied.

HOW DOES THE SCAVENGER HUNT WORK?

Each scavenger will be encouraged to check out each book in the competition. They go to your book's Amazon page and answer a question about your book for a chance at a gift card.

They can also choose to follow you on Twitter, like you on Facebook, not to mention check out your blog to answer another scavenger hunt question. Once again the exposure factor cannot be ignored.

PACKAGES FOR ANY BUDGET

You'll note that I'm no longer offering packages that come with extra promotion through posts and/or tweets. Once again, this has to do with my sanity.

Entry into Cover Wars only (not the Scavenger Hunt)
Entry into Cover Wars and the Scavenger Hunt.
Entry into the Scavenger Hunt only (not Cover Wars).

Very Important Note: If your Paypal email is different than your contact email, please provide the email you would like me to use to contact you. Otherwise I will email the address you provide to Paypal. Unless you email me first, you won't hear from me until probably the last week of December or thereabouts.

The Masquerade Crew