30 Covers 30 Days: Wrap-Up Post

November is over!

NaNoWriMo has concluded.

Hopefully everyone had fun, got some words down, and is ready for whatever December brings.

First and foremost, thanks to Debbie Millman for coordinating once again. Every year, she goes above and beyond to help us put this program together. Round of applause, everyone!

Also, huge thanks to the designers, without whom this whole endeavor wouldn’t be possible. These are professional designers who choose to donate their time and energy for zero money. Everyone should give them as much love as you possibly can! (A full list of designers can be found below!)

And, of course, there are the participants, who submit their synopses. Make no mistake: it’s a brave and vulnerable thing to give people a glimpse of your creativity. So thanks to everyone who submitted!

Fun Facts!

We’ve seen hard and soft science fiction, we’ve had fantasy of all shapes and sizes. We’ve had Young Adult literature, Erotica, Mysteries, Thrillers, Horror, Comedy, and whatever “Literary” is (because, ultimately, isn’t all writing literature, and thus all of it is literary by definition?) Ah well. Setting my quibbles about genre aside, here are some fascinating stats:

This year, there were 1484 submissions932 came from NaNoWriMo participants557 came from Young Writers Program participants

The most popular genre was Fantasy, with 451 submissions—a number with fun literary connotations.

Young Adult was a distant second with 195 submissions.Followed by Adventure with 147And Science Fiction with 142

Y’all are nerds, is what I’m saying. Be proud of yourselves!

I really wish that every single synopsis could get its own cover, because every single one of you deserves it. Seeing the sheer variety of our participants’ imagination was a genuinely moving experience.

To help illustrate people’s interests, here’s a word cloud showing all the tags that people used for their novels:

A high quality download of the word cloud is available here!

Because of our limitations with image formats on the blog, the covers posted here are usually downgraded versions of higher quality files. Go check out our daily forums threads to see higher quality versions of the covers!

Designer List!

(in order of appearance - links go to their cover designs)

Michael BraleyKevin PerryAlberto RigauCora WoodwardCookie ReddingKelley MalonePatrick KingSamantha BarnesDavid Hisaya AsariJesse HernandezLauren VajdaJoe SchwartzHolly AguilarMarvin ForteKimberly WeinerRoshanak KeyghobadiMaddy AngstreichJoshua EgeApril GreimanFreddy ClevelandSean Childers-GrayVictoria PickettCourtney GlancyRachel GogelVictor DavilaKatharine GrippDebbie MillmanJina AnneRoxane Gay

This has been one of my favorite parts of working at NaNoWriMo! Thanks to everyone for sharing the covers, for taking part in the discussions, and for being involved in this incredible program.

I hope next year is just as wacky and fun!

-Freddy