Wednesday, August 11, 2010

I won!

Over at Lauren Willig's blog, author of the The Pink Carnation Series, she's had this cover contest going on for who comes up with the best cover for her upcoming book, The Orchid Affair.  The cover has already been designed by the publisher, and it's a departure from her past books, totally different and a lot of fans were a bit outspoken and disgruntled over it (I personally like it).  Anyway, Lauren decided to have a contest for who could design their own cover and have a vote on it.

Well, I submitted my entry and designed it in keeping with her former style of cover - and it won!  And not just by a few votes  - I ran away with it!  I was over 40 votes ahead of the person next in line.  I was flabbergasted by it - but also secretly delighted!  Still, the voting and contest itself had loads of drama!  Stacked votes and before the contest started, Lauren posted some of the entries for people to ooh and ah at;  If you look carefully, the winner who won 3rd prize decided to help herself to my cover - you'll see what I mean.  What do they say, "imitation is the sincerest form of flattery?"  Hmmph!  Anyway, it was fun to win and I get an advance copy of the book and maybe a limited edition dust cover of the book itself!  That would be very cool!

Here is my winning entry, it's of a portrait by Ingres that hangs at the Frick Collection in NYC, one of my favorite museums.  I worked my Photoshop magic on it and voila! Apparently there is a book out there about Mozart that has a very similar cover, but I'd never seen it or heard of it until one commenter decided to point it out to all with a link during the voting (really, did she have to do that, it only made her look meanspirited).  Anyway, check it out!  I was #5.  I got something like 99 votes!


If you haven't read Lauren Willig's Pink Carnation series, give it a try, it's one of my favorites, and I had the pleasure of meeting and hanging out with Lauren this past June at a book conference in Phoenix.  She's delightful and I look forward to meeting her again some day, she's only across the Hudson River from me after all! :)

15 comments:

Scorpio M. said...

Congrats! Truly beautiful cover.

Joanne said...

Awesome news, Julie! Congratulations on creating a truly lovely cover. Although the publisher's new cover is nice, I like your interpretation better as it is in the same design spirit as the other trade books in the series -- I like a series to look cohesive, but alas, the publishers obviously think differently. Won't that be something if you get a limited edition dust cover?!!! Bravo!

Julie at Outlandish Dreaming said...

Scorpio, thank you!

Joanne - thanks, I prefer the older look too, but I don't mind the new one either. Some of her fans have been vociferous in their condemnation of it!

Holly said...

Congrats! I didn't get a chance to vote but yours was definitely my favorite :)

Patti (@TheLoveJunkee) said...

Yay! Congratulations - it really is a gorgeous cover. I looked at the Marrying Mozart cover and it's definitely not the same;I mean the girl is, but you took it and "made it your own" (too much American Idol, sorry!).

Marie-Thérèse said...

Congratulations! That was an inspired use of Ingres' portrait, fitting in really well with the feel of Willig's previous covers in the series.

I had to go way way back in her blog to find the "real" cover for the new book. I don't dislike it (it's pretty, the colors and font are nice) but it's not as distinctive as the previous covers and seems to be going for a more obvious "romance novel" feel, where the previous covers seemed more like those common in historical fiction (the kind that doesn't have a guaranteed HEA). Maybe Willig's publishers felt they weren't telegraphing the romance aspect strongly enough and thus missing out on readers who might be interested in the books.

Carrie at In the Hammock Blog said...

Congratulations, Julie!! That is so awesome!!! Sounds like there was a lot of drama!! YOur cover is gorgeous.

i like the 'real' cover, I think it looks like a historical romance cover. i guess they are trying to appeal to that genre??

Julie at Outlandish Dreaming said...

Holly - thanks :)

Patti - yes, it's similar in the fact the face is on the left and cut off, but mine is very different, I use almost the whole portrait (but hid her left arm around her waist which I thought was unattractive in the portrait itself). LOL! American Idol - can you believe I've only seen it a few times in my life?

Julie at Outlandish Dreaming said...

M-T - Yes, Lauren told me when we met in June that her publisher wanted to redo all the covers in the series, so this new cover will match the reissue of the old books, probably for the reasons you brought up. So, keep your old books if you have them, for they won't be available once the new ones come out, I think. She's previewed the European covers and they are gorgeous. I agree this new one looks a lot like a romance novel, typical with the girl's head cut off, doesn't really indicate the espionage historical aspect of the books, but I think it's pretty too!

Carrie - yes, tons of drama. I was above the fray since I was in the lead from the beginning, but lots of wrangling and one person's husband got on and posted messages as "Mr. 40, 37, 16" because certain people were ganging up on his wife because she wrote on her blog, encouraging people to vote - and blatantly showed them which entries were hers - so everyone, like lemmings, went and voted for her submissions! It was really something! Vastly entertaining to watch how it all unfolded. Lauren handled it well, for it was a sticky situation and she didn't want to offend any of her fans, but at the same time, she needed to step in to stop the hullabaloo that was building.

!

Amy C said...

That is wonderful, Julie! You did a fantastic job. I had no idea you were into that design stuff.

Julie at Outlandish Dreaming said...

Amy, thanks, yes I used to be a real Photoshop addict and made lots and lots of icons at LiveJournal, entered challenges, won lots of awards there too, but that sort of went by the wayside when I returned to work. You never quite forget how to do it though, I still fiddle around with it once in a while. :)

Erotic Horizon said...

Hey Julie..

Congrats - I am so chuffed for you...

It is really the best cover of the lot...

P.S. - Totally agree with you on that Mozart thing..

Congrats again - May this be the start of something new for you.

E.h>

Julie at Outlandish Dreaming said...

E.H. - Aww, thank you! I'm not going to get into graphic arts or anything, but it's fun to dabble one in a while, I just couldn't resist the contest!

JennJ said...

Very nice hon! Well done! :)

Julie at Outlandish Dreaming said...

Thanks Jenn!

Related Posts with Thumbnails