This month I'll be getting the rights back to "In a Dark Wood," one of my first short stories. The story was in the Arresting Developments anthology through Aspen Mountain Press, and it's a creepy little bit about a young travel writer who has to confront his deepest, darkest fears during one of the world's most hellish first dates.

You can read the reviews and a bit of the story right here.  

Anyway, I plan to release the story as a little standalone through Amazon's Kindle and a couple of other sites, but it needs a new cover. I'm not expecting to make a bundle, obviously, since the story has been out forever, but I thought I'd hold a little contest and the winner will be credited for the cover and get $50. (US).

So here are the rules.

I'm thinking a month is probably more than long enough to come up with something, right? The deadline will be December 1st.

I don't have any particular preference as to the artwork -- photo, original art, whatever is fine -- but it does have to be your own (meaning not copyrighted material you're borrowing). Personally, I think it should be something sort of dark and moody and eerie, but I'm not the artist. I leave it to you, and I'll just know when I see it if it seems right to me or not.

My thought is that as you complete the work, you enter it into the contest by leaving word -- and a link to your work -- in the comment section of this post. That way you get to show your work to everyone -- and perhaps get some nice feedback, whether yours is the selected cover or not.

The title In a Dark Wood and my name need to appear somewhere on the cover. Here's the technical stuff:

TIFF (.tif/.tiff) or JPEG (.jpeg/.jpg) format.
Image pixel dimensions of at least 1280 pixels on the longest side, 2560 or larger preferred.
sRGB or CMYK color mode. (I have NO idea what that means -- hopefully the artists among you will)

I think that's pretty much it. I'll be doing the judging all by my lonesome, but it will be based as much as on what I think will help sell the story as what I personally like, just so we all know. My decision won't be based on artistic merit or some critical judgment beyond the fact that I think I'll know the right cover when I see it.

Feel free to pass the word along -- and if you're an artist, feel free to jump in and give it a shot. 

If I missed anything -- and I probably did -- just ask the question here in the comment section -- your question may be the same as someone else's.  

 ENTRIES (I'll update as I receive them)

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