The author says:
A small group of death Divers (hazmat equipped salvagers) pit wits against a group of armed mercenaries to retrieve an artifact from an irradiated and abandoned part of future Earth.
Nathan says:
Oh, goodie! I am totally the target audience for a book like this, so I can speak with even more authority than normal.
- The tan overlay makes everything murky. I appreciate that you’re trying to limit the color palette, but there should still be enough highlights and lowlights to make it stand out. (You’ve got the lowlights handled.)
- But the image itself isn’t very evocative; in fact, without the tan, it wouldn’t seem post-apocalyptic at all — none of the buildings seem ruined at first glance.
- I don’t propound “Always have people on the cover” as a hard-and-fast rule, but in this case, where your story isn’t just “someone wanders around the wasteland” but a conflict between two groups of people, there should be some hint of conflict or violence on the cover.
- Even at full size, the byline blurs into the background; in thumbnail, it’s almost hidden.
I think you might want to start over with a different image. The good news is that there are plenty of photos and digital paintings of armed people against a post-apocalyptic setting out there, and I bet you wouldn’t have any trouble finding a photographer or artist willing to let you use their work on an ebook cover for twenty or thirty bucks.
Other comments?