If so, you’re probably better poised than we are to win a contest kicking off today. So listen up artists, armchair critics, and wannabe designers: HarperCollins, in collaboration with the Saatchi Gallery, are sponsoring a competition to design a book cover for the forthcoming The Last Days of the Lacuna Cabal, Sean Dixon’s debut novel. To all our artsy readers: opportunity knocks (though we’re not making any claims about fame and fortune).

The collaboration between HarperCollins and the Saatchi marks an interesting departure in the publishing world’s approach to book promotion. HarperCollins senior editor Clare Hey notes that in a market as crowded as book publishing, it’s increasingly difficult to get worthy debut fiction the attention it deserves. That the publisher has chosen Dixon’s novel as the recipient of this attention attests to its high hopes for the book. Previously published in Canada as The Girls Who Saw Everything, the book was chosen as one of Canadian magazine Quill & Quire’s top ten of 2007. Not only should the competition give the “electrifyingly smart” novel a shot at a cover to match; it also gives designers, aspiring or otherwise, the chance to be associated with a book that seems poised to repeat its earlier successes once published in the UK.

Admittedly, it will probably take more than the talents of a 6-year-old wunderkind to win this contest. Still, as most people have more artistic ability in their pinkie fingers than this Londonista has overall, we expect we’ll be impressed by the quality of submissions and the winning design. We wish the contestants luck.

Image courtesy of noodlepie’s Flickr photostream