Call for Artists
Local Arts Literature Series
We are proud to announce our Local Arts Literature series: a collection of hardcover literary classics published by Gaslight Books with cover art by West Virginia artists. New additions to the series will be released on a regular basis, and a cut of every book sale will be gifted to local nonprofit art organizations and projects.
If you are an artist who lives in West Virginia and creates work in any 2-dimensional medium, you are eligible to have your work featured on one of our covers. Learn more and submit an application below, and don’t hesitate to contact us if you have any questions at all.
How It Works
Gaslight Books will pay the cover artist a flat rate to create an original work of art to be used as a book cover. The artist will be paid half of the agreed-upon amount up front and half upon the work’s completion. Gaslight Books will gain full rights to use and sell the completed work for the book cover, marketing, and merchandise. The artist will retain full rights to use, print, and sell the completed work as desired.
The artist will be credited on the book cover, on the book’s title page, and on all marketing materials and social media posts related to the book’s publication. A forward from the artist can be added to the book if desired.
The books published in the series will be pulled from our predetermined list of public domain titles. The artist may choose between one to three of their preferred book titles from our list during the submission process. The available titles are listed below:
- Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
- Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
- Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
- Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie
- Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
- Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
- Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
- Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
- A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
- The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle
- The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
- The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
- The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
- The Iliad by Homer
- The Odyssey by Homer
- The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling
- Moby Dick; or, the Whale by Herman Melville
- Frankenstein by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
- The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Lewis Stevenson
- Treasure Island by Robert Lewis Stevenson
- Dracula by Bram Stoker
- Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne
- Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne
- The Time Machine by H.G. Wells
- The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
Guidelines
All works submitted for use in the Local Arts Literature series must adhere to the following guidelines:
- Printed book covers will be 148mm wide by 210mm tall. Submitted works must be of a ratio that fits this printed area.
- Final book covers must include the complete book title and the author’s name. The artist may incorporate the book title and/or the author’s name into their work if desired; otherwise, Gaslight Books will add the missing information to the cover design in a fashion that matches the cover art. Please note that if we add the information ourselves, the text may overlap the art.
- The cover art must be original. It cannot be derivative of previous cover art for the selected book from any major publisher, and it must not be an existing work from the artist’s portfolio.
- The cover art must fit the book’s story or theme in some way, ether literally or metaphorically.
- The cover art must not portray graphic violence, explicit sexual acts, or hate symbols.
Additional Information
- Book covers will be printed in full color with a matte finish. Please note that printed colors may differ slightly from the original work, though we will do what we can to keep the colors as close to the original as possible.
- The artist will be attributed by name on the book cover; we will add the attribution during the layout process. If the artist’s signature or other identifier appears on the work, further attribution will not be added to the front cover.
- After production is complete, the artist will be given three copies of the book at no cost. Additional copies may be purchased by the artist at any time at a discounted rate.