The author says:

Genre: SciFi – cyberpunk

Pitch: Moon-based hackers infect Earth with a neurological suicide virus. After her mother is infected, our thought-scanner heroine heads to the lawless Moon colony to find the cure.

Reader appeal: sci-fi technology, exploration of potentials (and potential abuses) of neuroscience, mind-bending concepts.

Nathan says:

You’ve got some snazzy artwork there.  I might suggest more distinct stars around the edges, to indicate the outer-space setting.

Assuming you’ve got enough margin on the artwork, I’d move the live area upward so that the title doesn’t lie across the chin; the face isn’t immediately recognizable as such as it is.

I’m not sold on the typography for the byline and series title; it definitely needs to be a lighter shade to stand out from the background, and the typeface doesn’t work for me.  Fortunately, there are commenters here who will suggest some good replacements.

Other thoughts?

The author says:

Two strangers both have one thing in common, they lost a partner to death. Brett Miller, a widow with a ten-year-old daughter, has spent the last two years grieving the death of his wife Natasha. The heartbreak and the devastation don’t seem to end, when he loses his job, and his relationship with his daughter continues to disintegrate. He tries to keep everything together, but isn’t sure he has it in him. Victoria Bell’s boyfriend of two years died unexpectedly, leaving her alone to raise their infant daughter. With the help of her sister, she learns to live again. But an unexpected foe from her past puts a wrench in her new beginning and she fears staying in the realm of heartbreak forever. Can Brett and Victoria break free from melancholy?

Nathan says:

So, I don’t understand. How do the stories of Brett and Victoria relate? Is this a romance? Are they neighbors who platonically help each other through their crises?  Do they become each other’s arch-nemesis?  I’m trying to find the core of the story here and what readers it’s meant to appeal to, because that will matter which way we go on this cover.  (Right now, the cover could be anything from a collection of poetry to a memoir of depression to…)

The author says:

The Hoarders have taken control of the world’s resources and withdrawn into massive fortified enclaves. Without their knowledge, people scrambling for a living outside of the walled cities are being snatched and implanted with tech that renders them into zealot-like killing machines.

This book is the second in a trilogy with YA, Sci-fi and Dystopian markets in mind. It is an ensemble cast, set in our world, Pacific Northwest, probably Seattle area.

Nathan says:

Any time we look at a later book in a series, we need to also ask, Does this continue a steady branding from the first volume? Because if any changes we suggest break the branding continuity, then it’s not helping by helping.

For reference, here’s the first book:

I can see that you’ve got a common eye motif going here, but I think it’s more cerebral than immediate, i.e., someone looking at the two covers might think, “Oh, *I* see a common motif!” but someone just glancing at the covers won’t immediately relate Book 1 to Book 2.  That might be an easy fix: Move the right eye to the same position on each cover.  You might also experiment with some texture over everything but that right eye, so that the bright skin tone doesn’t stand out so much, and add something to mimic the “divided” appearance of the first cover.

Other comments?

The author says:

(This is a replacement for a cover submitted awhile back that, um, was not popular with the reviewers. I hope I’ve learned a bit from this one)

Eloise is a princess in hiding, an orphan, and an heir to the throne her uncle wants. In her grandfather’s day, Uncle Frideric would have staked her out for a dragon’s meal. Two birds with one stone, so to speak. Fortunately, virgin sacrifices to the dragons are passé now. Until the day she rescues a baby dragon, whose parents are searching desperately for him. Then she might just be food for wyrms, if they don’t realize she’s their heroine first…

[original submission and comments here]

Nathan says:

As 3-D rendered people go, this is good.  (I have a visceral hatred of “pseudohumans,” but not everyone is so irrational.)  Here’s what I would do:

• Change something in the background — streaks of color, soft-focus trees or catacombs or whatever… just so that the filler background doesn’t look like filler.
• Crop the artwork tighter:

…and then increase the title size to fill the space and make it easier to read at smaller sizes.  (With an ornate font like this one, you really need to compensate with size for readability.)  You can easily move the byline up into the space left at the bottom without obscuring any essential detail of the artwork.

• Possibly add a light order, or maybe just a texture around the edges, to compensate for the rendered figures. (I REALLY don’t like pseudohumans. Can you tell?)

Other comments?

The author says:

A collection of covers including my Mike Delaney thriller series. Do they present a distinctive ‘brand’? Can they live with thousands of other covers vying for attention on Amazon? Do they need redesigning?

Nathan says:

Most of them signal clearly that they’re thrillers (although Bodyswitch is a little shaky), but I wouldn’t say that they indicate a “brand,” either for you as an author or for the Mike Delaney series. (I definitely wouldn’t assume them to be a single series.) Aside from the fonts used (perfectly appropriate for the genre, but not distinctive in any way), the only commonality I can see among them is the prevalence of silhouettes, often distant — and that’s such a common cover concept for thrillers, there’s no way at can act as your specific series branding.

It’s really hard to find a good example of ebook thriller series branding that doesn’t rely on author awareness. Earlier editions of Robert B. Parker’s “Spenser” novels, for example, used a consistent cover design, but it looks dated now (and I don’t think the current editions do a good job of separating the series franchises — you have to look close to tell if it’s a Spencer novel, or a Sunny B. Randall novel, or a Jess Stone novel).

I think a redesign would be a good idea.  You should go into it having decided a particular element or motif that you’re going to keep consistent through all of the covers.  Maybe it’s a particular ink/blood splotch that will be under the right-hand side of the title.  Maybe it’s that every cover will show a partial figure in silhouette (i.e., a figure closer to the “camera” will always be visible only as an arm or hand or shoulder).  Those are just the first two I thought of; you should brainstorm some motifs, then think of how they could play into each cover.  Some of the covers would only need a moderate revision; others would need a ground-up redo.

Other thoughts?