Considerations for cover and interior art submissions.
When sending artwork during the entry window for the Carolina Prize cover art competition or during the County Lines: A Literary Journal general submissions window (interior art), we accept or reject artwork both based on the quality of the work itself, and also based on an image's fitness for publication from a technical perspective.
Carolina Prize: .jpg, full color, 1800 x 2700 pixels or 5700 x 2700 pixels (width x height)
Open Submissions: .jpg, grayscale, 900 to 1200 pixels for each dimension
(pixel counts are approximate)
The winner of the Carolina Prize art competition will be used as the cover for the next issue of County Lines. The cover is approximately 6 x 9 inches (portrait) and the front, back, and spine is approximately 19 x 9 inches (landscape). Therefore, at 300 dpi, the ideal image you send us will need to be at least 1800 x 2700 pixels or 5700 x 2700 pixels. Give or take. If you overshoot, that is just fine. If you undershoot, depending on the nature of the image the quality will be impacted, and it will be less likely that we can use it. Please send the image as a full-color image.
Interior art MUST be grayscale. Published images will never be larger than 3 x 4 inches (900 x 1200 pixels). Send us the highest quality you can muster, and we'll try to make it work if accepted.
If creating or manipulating the work in GIMP, Photoshop, Inkscape, or Illustrator:
Save the original work in the application's native format: .xcf, .psd, .svg, or .ai respectively.
(That's your "source file" or your "working copy." You don't send us this.)
Export the work to a .jpg image at our suggested pixels sizes (see above) or larger. If you send a somewhat larger image, it gives us more flexibility.
If your Carolina Prize entry is not a perfect book-cover-shaped object, never fear; just send us an image that is roughly that size or larger. Exporting the image where its shortest side is at least 2700 to 3000 pixels is a simple rule-of-thumb that should produce good results.
If photographing the work with your phone camera:
Ensure your lighting is as perfect as possible.
Ensure your phone camera settings are set to generate a "high-quality" image.
In your phone's camera settings, do this …
Android: set the Camera photo resolution to "Full resolution." What this means is that the photo taken will be of the highest quality your camera can muster. (Certain brands of Android-based phones may set this differently.)
iPhone: set the Camera > Format > Photo Mode to a megapixel (MP) setting of something larger than 12MP.