We hear it first the day we decide to become a independent author. Take special pains with your cover design, we are told. The cover design is your first chance and often your only chance to make an impression on the reader.

The reader doesn’t know your name.

The reader doesn’t know your work.

All the reader does is see the image of your cover within the online pages of Amazon or Barnes & Noble or Kobo or any of the other sites you may use to promote, market, and sell your novels. If the cover is dynamic and intriguing enough, he or she may buy your book. The cover is our chance to put our best face forward.

At Caleb and Linda Pirtle, we know the importance of a winning cover design.

At Caleb and Linda Pirtle, we are looking for those winning cover designs and celebrating those winning cover designs.

I know a lot has been written, and I have written some of it, about the need to make sure your cover design looks as though it may have come from the big city graphic design shops used in New York by the big boys.

Well, I keep looking at novels produced by independent authors.

And every day I am more impressed.

Caleb and Linda Pirtle is sponsoring a series of contests to choose the Best Cover Design in all of the genres, and we are fortunate enough to be working with a team of social media, marketing, promotion, and design professionals to select winner in each genre, then work with Anthony Wessel of Digital Books Today when it comes time to select the overall winner.

The first category is mystery novels and it will run until January 31.

We want to give you an opportunity to showcase and celebrate your cover design.

To enter, send us an image of your mystery novel cover to caleb@calebandlindapirtle.com, and let us know which category the book fits:

Police Procedural

Crime

Caper

Detective

Cozy Mystery

Legal

Medical

Hardboiled or Noir

Suspense

Romantic Suspense

Private Eye

Go ahead.

Enter Soon

It’s time we all found out how good today’s indie novel covers really are. Go ahead and enter. The sooner the better.