The American Society of Magazine Editors has announced the winners of its 2009 Best Magazine Covers of the Year, a contest whose winners were actually voted on by consumers, instead of memebers of the ASME, for the first time. Voting took place through online polls on Amazon.com and consumers chose ten covers in categories ranging from "Entertainment and Celebrity" to "Most Delicious." Here are the winners:

 Entertainment & Celebrity: Vanity Fair
(January 2009 issue)
The cover features “New American Sweetheart” Tina Fey, whose portrayal of Sarah Palin provided much-needed comic relief during an otherwise contentious election season.

Sports & Fitness: Sports Illustrated
(December 12, 2008 issue)
An underwater camera, firing at eight frames per second, provided the only photographic proof of Michael Phelps’ astounding, come-from-behind triumph over Serbia’s Milorad Cavic in the 100-meter butterfly at the 2008 Summer Olympics.

Fashion & Beauty: Harper’s Bazaar
(March 2009 issue)
The magazine’s Spring Fashion Issue cover features actress Sarah Jessica Parker, whose silvery gray organza Chanel dress picks up the early-morning light of daybreak on the Brooklyn Bridge, signaling the optimism of the new fashion season.

House & Home: Veranda
(October 2008 issue)
The rustic farmhouse featured on the cover where Dick Vervoordt lives with his family was strongly influenced and partly designed by his father, the celebrated Belgian designer and antique dealer Axel Vervoordt.

Lifestyle: Condé Nast Traveler
(August 2008 issue)
A solitary pool of one’s own with an infinity-edge view of the rugged Amalfi Coast and endless seas is a traveler’s fantasy made reality.

News & Business: New York
(March 2, 2009 issue)
New York eschewed familiar business-magazine conventions for a bold, daring and somewhat gruesome depiction of Bernie Madoff as the comic-book villain Joker.

Science, Technology & Nature: Audubon
(August 2008 issue)
Using high-speed photography and a pure white background, this portrait of a blue-and-yellow macaw in flight, taken from behind, fully captures and celebrates the magnificent color and design of this iconic parrot’s plumage.

Most Delicious: Bon Appétit
(August 2008 issue)
Photographer Kenji Toma brought his unique sense of creativity and energy to a relatively straightforward approach to a mouthwatering ice cream recipe, featuring dripping chocolate as a visual hook.

Sexiest Cover: ELLE
(December 2008 issue)
The graphic black and white image of country/pop star Carrie Underwood in a moment of apparent ecstasy yields a surprisingly sexier vibe in someone whose image up to then had been nothing but wholesome.

Best Obama Cover: Rolling Stone
(July 10-24, 2008 issue)
Photographer Peter Yang caught up with Barack Obama in Raleigh, North Carolina, just a few days after he had finally nailed down the Democratic Party’s Presidential nomination.

Cudos to the ASME for realizing that all the time we editors spend filtering through thousands of cover photo possibilities, 90 percent of them looking very similar, all the brainstorming, writing and rewriting of cover blurbs, all the cover committee approval and rejections ... it's really the readers who choose our best covers, right off the newsstands. I mean, there are formulas for creating great, sellable covers, but there has been more than one time when a cover I thought was lame, actually did reasonably well and vice versa. 

Magazine readers en masse are fickle. Sometimes the great image grabs them, sometimes the cover text does. Which makes learing from this contest that much more meaningful to editors and publishers looking to put out that killer cover.

Still up for grabs is the 2009 Best Cover of the Year. Of these 10 finalists, consumers can vote for the best overall cover until Sept. 30 by visiting www.amazon.com/bestcovers.