Evolution of a Cover

Covers are hard.

The first book I published was Bloodhunters v1: Bad Blood. At the time, I couldn't afford to pay anyone, so I used my own artwork (below, left). But it was too rough, so I asked my brother for help. He's a very nice artist, but he's too busy these days with his 3D printing business, so he's not doing much traditional artwork. Still, he cleaned up my image, and I published it with his version of the cover (below, middle). But one of the first reviews I received criticized the cover for being too bland. So I decided to work an actual artist into my budget. Since the book has transgender themes, I decided to look for a trans artist. I went with an artist by the name of Cyanimations, who provided the cover I finally used (below, right).

I really like how the art style has a "comic book" feel that compliments the story quite nicely. I also hired him for the other two books in the series:

 

Next I wrote a collection of prequel stories, which I called "Blood Samples." Since it was free, I didn't worry too much about the cover. I went with a crude cityscape based on a pour painting (below, left). But later I discovered "GetCovers," a site which designs book covers for $35. So I reposted the book with a new cover (below, right.)

For the "Random Xinery" series of short stories, I made all the covers myself. I used model train miniatures, resin dice my wife created for me, and battle grids that I made myself.

For my upcoming "Itropa" novel, I initially thought I'd use a drawing I made back in college (below, left), but I finally got GetCovers to make a better version (below, right).

But none of my covers have gone through more revisions than my most recent release, Nomads of Zyden. My first attempt at a cover depicted a nude woman engulfed in flames. I purchased some pictures of a model from Grafit Studio, and I really like how it turned out (below, left). But I thought it might be a little too male-gazey for a novel about a lesbian, so I censored it a little bit (below, right).

But it still didn't sit well with me. Next I tried taking a couple of pictures of a sword I own. First I tried it in front of some greenery (below, left), but it seemed a little bland. Part of the novel takes place in the frozen mountains, and I was fortunate enough to get some snow this year, so I tried the same concept with the sword in the snow (below, right). 

But in the end, I still thought that was a little bland. So finally I broke down and went with GetCovers (below), and I'm more than happy with the result.

 

Cover Reveal: Nomads of Zyden

Here is the final cover art for my upcoming sapphic swords-and-sorcery novel, Nomads of Zyden. I still have a little editing to do, but I should have it published in about a month.

Cover courtesy of GetCovers.com.

Title Reveal: Gender Rolls

My third collection of short stories will be titled "Gender Rolls," and it should be out in about six months. Expect somewhere between eight and twelve short stories that relate to gender in some way.

Cover Reveal: Untitled Short Story Collection

We got a lot of snow here a couple of weeks ago, which kept me from leaving the house for a week. I actually had to go an entire week without fast food, oh horror of horrors! One upside was that I got to take a few pictures in the snow, and potentially found a cover for an upcoming short story collection. This book will be the third in the series that includes Geek Cutes and Rainbow Nightmares. This collection is probably more than a year off, and doesn’t have a title yet. No, I’m not going to call it “Title Goes Here,” tempting as that may be.