The Emma Awards writing contest is the premier award for diversity in romantic literature. It recognizes excellence in published romance novels, novellas, and women’s fiction featuring diverse and multicultural protagonists (such as black, African-American, Latino American, Hispanic Americans, biracial, etc.) and is sponsored by the Romance Slam Jam (aka the RSJ Book Lovers’ Convention), the networking event for diversity in literature, managed by Diverse Writers and Readers International non-profit.
Choosing this year’s Best Book Cover for the Emma Awards was not an easy call. The conference room table with all the Emma Award writing contest book covers spread edge to edge can seem a bit challenging. Also, when you’ve eliminated the book covers down, rejected this one and that one, and there’s still a sea of maybes still staring back at you, it starts to seem darn near impossible. That being said, we did narrow it down to four contenders.
ROMANCE WRITING CONTEST BOOK COVER FINALIST
“The First Rule Of Hook-Ups” by Nina Crespo
Judges thought that this cover did an exemplary job with having to incorporate a lot of text; the cover text can be challenging. Besides the fact that the character on the cover made everyone weak in the knees.
“Faith Alone” by Terri Ann Johnson
Judges thought the title was beautiful and that the heroine on the cover seemed to really embody the characters emotions.
“Within the Skin: Love,Lies and Broken Promises” by Zara West
Judges also liked how this cover embodied the storyline closely. In our area of diversity, consideration of whether the hero on the cover really looked “Black” did cross the judges’ table. However, African-Americans who don’t exactly look “Black,” or who tend to sway on looking Hispanic, or who look mixed race can be an ordinary reality in America. Diversity can be a tough subject for us all.
“Vindicated” by Sharon C. Cooper
Judges were impressed with the authors brand, her name, on this cover. Her name not only stood out, it demanded your attention and said, “I’m important, and you need to read me.”
ROMANCE WRITING CONTEST BOOK COVER WINNER
So the winner was, “Within The Skin” by Zara West.
Why? Because among having what we felt were the necessary aspects like having a distinct author title, I mean that is the brand the author is building, it actually went outside the box and broke a graphic design book cover rule too, but it worked!
The title on the cover isn’t clear or easily readable, but if you know the premise of the book, it fits and works perfectly. It seemingly symbolizes something that is both seen and hidden further exemplifying the storyline of the book. Sometimes breaking the rules can be a good thing. In marketing, visual communication becomes key. Our graphic design judges had a clear understanding on this point. The title visually delivered a message thus becoming an additional visual element.
Congratulations to author Zara West on winning the Best Book Cover in the 2019 Emma Awards writing contest.
For the full list of Emma Award romance writing contest winners, CLICK HERE
