15 December 2010. During NaNoWriMo2010, I asked the NanoArtists to try to come up with a cover for my novel Scintilla. The two examples that resulted were too minimalist for my tastes.

So, I roughed out the graphic portion of my cover. You see part of that on the left. I borrowed a clip art, a cartoon, and I added my own sunrise/set gradient. This is all well and good, but I will need to replace this mockup with a real image. That's why I'm having a contest to replace the blue guy in the background with a real person—maybe even you.

Requirements. What am I looking for? I'm looking for a suitably menacing guy, adopting a pose similar to the blue guy. You don't necessarily have to be in some uniform, but added points. Sorry, Scintilla drives the requirement as it refers to the villain. The image has to be approximately four inches tall at 300dpi (or 1200 pixels). Has to be menacing—this character has the weight and resources of a galactic empire at his disposal to subvert a backwater planet.

The submitter has to be able and willing to provide a non-exclusive transfer of copyright. That means that you're giving me irrevocable right to use the image as I see fit (planned use is for the book and marketing related to the book and my web sites). You still own the image and can do with it what you will.

Reward. What do you get out of it? I will be putting in a Colophon or Acknowledgement section in the novel and will give the winner an acknowledgement, and perhaps a suitable comment. This is a slight reward as this will be the second novel in a series (of two planned) of a no-named hack. The image will be on Amazon, so you will have those bragging rights, and if the novel sells well, then thousands of people will think you're pretty intimidating.

Rules.

• The timeframe is open-ended. I will post a blog entry when I have enough entries that will announce a final deadline of perhaps a fortnight from the posting. This will give others a chance to enter. I don't expect a lot of entries immediately, so I have to give this a chance to run virally.
• Contestant conveys non-exclusive transfer of copyright, with consideration, of the image by submitting it as an entry.
• Contestant must be a U.S. citizen
• Contestant may submit no more than ten (10) menacing photos.
• Still working out how to submit. For now, Tweet Me with the #scintillacoverart tag and we will synchronize.
• No inappropriate photos (pornographic, etc.)
• I will put up a voting page that will allow voting for a period defined at that time, probably a fortnight.