The annual Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off AKA SPFBO is starting soon! In previous years, the competition’s showrunner, Mark Lawrence, hosted a cover contest where each blog would nominate and vote on their favourite covers from the 300 entrants as readers voted on a pubic poll. Sadly, the rise of AI generated cover art brought an end to the official cover contest, but as big fans of SPFBO, we wanted to host our own… again!
Nils and Trudie are taking a critical eye to these 300 hopefuls and are choosing their favourite covers from the batch. As you’d expect from the quality of self-published books these days, it’s a tough competition! A good book cover has to do more than look pretty – it has to convey the genre and grab our interest.
As we peruse our faves, we’ll also be keeping an eye out for any AI generated covers and will do our best not to include them within our final choices, but as AI art becomes harder to detect, we can’t guarantee that a cover using AI assets won’t slip through. To counter this, we’re listing the cover artists where supplied by the author.
Scroll down to see which book covers Nils and Trudie have picked from each team and find our winners at the bottom. Want to see a closeup of each book? Then take a look at our Unofficial SPFBO XI page for a list of all teams and books.
Did we pick your favourites? Find out below!
Update: It has come to our attention that the winner we’d previously chosen was made using AI art, despite our due diligence. Damonza is a cover artist that has created many covers for indie authors over the years. However, they have since began using AI as part of their process, and have an updated policy that includes the use of AI art unless authors opt out. Not all covers created by Damonza feature AI art, but we have chosen to disqualify cover art created by this artist in our cover choices to avoid that risk. We have replaced our previous choices that use this artist with an exception for cover art confirmed to be free of AI art.
Fantasy-Faction
Nils’s Picks:
Trudie’s Picks:
Fantasy Book Critic
Nils’s Picks:
Trudie’s Picks:
The Weatherwax Report
Nils’s Picks:
Trudie’s Picks:
Before We Go Blog
Nils’s Picks:
Trudie’s Picks:
FanFiAddict
Nils’s Picks:
Trudie’s Picks:
The Fantasy Hive
Nils’s Picks:
Trudie’s Picks:
SFF Insiders
Nils’s Picks:
Cover Typography: Shawn T King (stk_kretions)
Cover Title Design: Dewey Conway (willowwraithpress)
Trudie’s Picks:
Abel Montero
Nils’s Picks:
Trudie’s Picks:
Tali’s Library
Nils’s Picks:
Trudie’s Picks:
Noah Brisk
Nils’s Picks:
Trudie’s Picks:
Cover design by MiblArt (miblart)
Our Finalists
Congratulations to our cover choices this far! We’ve had a strong collection of covers from each group this year, but now here comes the hard part as we whittle down our choices to just five finalists each. Here is what Nils and Trudie chose as their top five:
Nils’s Top Five:
I had a look at last years version of this post (here) to see if maybe my tastes had changed in any significant way since then, but that doesn’t look to be the case. It seems like I still prefer the calm and stylistic over the action packed and realistic.
That said, it’s time to share my Top Five, and to try and sound like I know what I’m talking about when I describe why I like them:
In fairness, both the title and the author name are hard to read in this one, but the art itself still pulls at me, and I want to take a second look. The style is reminiscent of cartoons I watched as a child, and it evokes feelings of adventure, myth, and wonder.
Additionally, if you like this art style, check out the game Wildermyth.
This cover speaks to me, and it makes me curious. I get vibes of something a little gothic, mystic, and romantic. There’s a pinch of heartbreak, nature, and long walks in the park at midnight.
I picked this one because it’s pretty and because the emotions it conveys intrigue me.
There’s a playful, vintage-ish feel to this cover. It speaks of fairytales and folklore, but of the sparkling and romantic kind.
This is the kind of cover that promises bravery and cleverness, adventure and excitement. Dashing heroes, alluring heroines, and – of course – a little romance.
It’s the kind of book you read before bedtime and that gives you wonderful dreams. That’s what this cover promises.
I may have mentioned that my preference wasn’t for the realistic and action packed, but this one’s just too good to pass up. This is the vibes of an 80’s action movie, and I know just what kind of story it promises.
For my final pick, we’re going all out dramatic and eye catching. Shards of as shattered face and a glowing spark of magic light.
The typography is spot-on and matches the art perfectly, creating a cover where all elements tie together to form a solid whole.
Trudie’s Top Five:
My tastes for book covers this year seem to be less about meeting genre conventions, and more about pretty illustrated imagery, patterns and symbols, and for some reason, a touch of the celestial. I’ve always preferred cover art with strong typography, and believe that professional typography can really make a book special and stand out. I also prefer covers that lean toward my favourite colours, so lots of blues and purples.
With that said, I don’t think my top five covers really sell their genre as they should, but they’re beautiful and bold, and that’s enough to sell me these books.
I’m a big gaslamp fan, and this gives me a European gaslamp/steampunk vibe! In fact, I loved this cover enough that it caught my attention a while back and has been sitting on my TBR. It speaks of adventure! Of all these finalists, I think this one hits the genre markers just right.
I love the illustration of the two characters here, and I’m generally someone that prefers to see characters on covers as opposed to symbol-based covers.
I’m absolutely spellbound by this beautiful cover. The illustration is gorgeous, the colours and celestial highlights really sell it to me, but also that typography is lovely too, which brings the whole cover together as a piece of art.
Again, this cover has the right colours to catch my eye, and also the celestial details. I especially like how the star appears in the centre of the ‘o’ in ‘those. The typography isn’t the most interesting of my finalist picks, but it works here.
I love the illustrated building and clouds (smoke?) that is framed by the moon in centre. There’s a lot of detail here to get lost in, and I do like detailed covers! Like Those We See in the Dark, I also love how the stars are framed inside the typography here.
This beautiful cover caught my eye long ago, and the book has been on my TBR since. It has an ‘Alice in Wonderland’ vibe to me, but again, I love the details, the illustrated character in the centre, and all the pretty flowers and stars. The typography is more creative here and aligned in a way that frames the cover perfectly.
Our Winner
With 300 covers entered into SPFBO this year, only one can be our favourite! Which one did we choose?
As usual, Nils and Trudie had quite different tastes when it comes to book cover art, which is fortunate really, as that means we get to show off more of your wonderful covers. It does make it harder for us to reach a decision, however! There were only a handful of covers that we shared in common.
As luck would have it, we both picked a finalist that we liked and could agree on.
So congratulations to this year’s winner:
Congratulations to everyone chosen within our cover contest! Of course, we do this for fun and for the love of pretty book covers and hope pursuing this list helps you find some new gems for your TBR pile. Good luck to all entrants in SPFBO XI and may the odds be in your favour.
Want to follow the contest? Then keep an eye on our unofficial SPFBO XI page!
Would you have chosen any of our favourites, or do our choices surprise you? Drop us a comment below with your favourite covers of the contest!
