The author says:

Madness sits upon the throne. Rebellion rages in the South. Dark magic threatens all life. The kingdom is desperate for heroes. When the young king’s soul is stolen by a traitorous cultist desperate to resurrect the Buried Goddess, disgraced knight Torsten Unger makes it his sworn duty to get it back. He has one chance to restore his honor. But he can’t do it alone. He’ll need a thief. Whitney Fierstown planned the perfect heist, one that would have made him a legend among thieves, until he got caught. Now, a knight with a questionable reputation is offering a deal: rot and die in a dank cell or join him on a dangerous expedition to put his skills to good use and earn his freedom. Whitney and Torsten must put aside their differences and work together to battle unholy cults, demons, rebels, and worse to become the heroes their war-torn kingdom never expected…if they don’t kill each other first.

Nathan says:

I have no complaints with most of it. The art is obviously of professional quality, and the title treatment is interesting without being distractingly ornate.

My only quibble is with the series title.  The typeface used there neither matches nor contrasts effectively with the title and byline fonts; it just clashes.  It also violates the good-sense guideline of “the smaller the type, the more readable the font.”

If the original artwork has enough unused margin, I’d be tempted to move everything down so that there’s more room above the torch’s flame, and see how the series title works there.

Other comments?

The author says:

Robin’s life had dissolved into dreams and nightmares but the nightmares became real. Wrapped in darkness and sounding like dead leaves she knew it was death. Now she was slipping between realities fighting to unlock her memories. Insanity closing in. A trap to keep her forever locked away under the stars of madness. A fight to unearth who and what she was. The Storm Bringer. The dead depended on her not to fail.

Nathan says:

Pretty much all that this cover says is, “I’m not a professional designer.”

• The artwork is okay, but it’s too murky to “pop,” and it’s definitely not ominous or nightmarish.
• The handwriting font is just casual, not ominous.
• Red type against a muddy background makes it extremely to read (look at the thumbnail above).
• You don’t need to tell me that it’s “a Robin Randle story” — you already told me that it’s a story about Robin Randle in the title.

Between the blurb and the cover, I STILL don’t know what the genre is. Is it urban fantasy? Portal fantasy? Supernatural horror?  You need a cover that tells the genre first and loudest. Why? So that the target audience will know, “This book is aimed at YOU.” Otherwise, they’ll never look at the description.

Other comments?

The author says:

[BORDERLANDS Resubmit – This is an experiment with a view from behind. The motivation is that the gender of the protagonist is only revealed quite late in the book, so I wanted to keep the gender ambiguous on the cover. Ironically, the figure looks more feminine now! Also, I have been having fun with the titling.]

VOLUME Blurb:Trapped in an eternal battle against the all surrounding Realm of Chaos, the nations of the The Rationalle fight to preserve the purity of their oasis and its most sacred relic, The Temporalis. In the shadow of the Realm’s corruption, where steel turns to dust, stone walls crumble and spells turn on the caster the battle-hardened Aether Guard hunt down and destroy the ravening Spawn before it can reach their home. Skill and experienced not withstanding, their sworn enemy surfacing deep within the Rationalle itself catches them completely un-prepared. On this new battle front politics and ambition prove even deadlier than the Spawn the pursue. Can they keep up with their enemy, or will the Realm of Chaos finally desecrate the Temporalis itself? Grimmdark marries Bronzepunk in this hard fantasy epic where action abounds in a unique and immersive world of captivating characters and frightful monsters.

BOOK Blurb: Captain Ganse of the Aether Guard leads a handpicked team on patrol through the insanity of the Borderlands. Long trained and battled hardened, this band of heroes must forsake magic and hunt the vile Spawn with deadly determination, simple brutal weapons and obscure advice buried in ancient book. What starts a another routine sweep soon becomes a battle for survival as they are challenged by horrors powerful beyond record. Now, not even skill, experience and the Captain’s unique family legacy can guarantee the patrol’s survival. In a chain of battles where the soldiers must win every time but the enemy needs but a single victory, can the patrol triumph or will the Realm’s dark blood finally choke the bright heart of their homelands? Grimmdark meets Bronzepunk in this action packed 30k-word novella that launches a unique hard fantasy epic set in a deeply immersive character centred world.

[previous submissions and comments here and here]

Nathan says:

The artwork is of similar quality to the previous resubmission — i.e., quite good — so I have no complaints there, although I don’t understand why you used NONE of the elements in that previous trio of options.  I have only two comments — one related to your blurb, the other to your branding:

1. Please tell me that you’re not keeping the protagonist’s gender a secret FROM THE READER until the end of the book.  It’s one thing to have a character whose gender is misdirected to the other characters for most of the story — think Mulan, or half a dozen Sharespearean comedies — but when a novel tries to keep something as basic to the protagonist (who is usually the viewpoint character) as gender identity a secret, the reader rightly feels played.
2. I don’t think that “Volume 1, Book 0” works.  (I have a problem with “Book 0” installments anyway; at best, they’re either a “limited-edition promo,” an idea taken from comic-book marketing which really doesn’t work with ebooks, or they’re backfill material for fans of the series/franchise, which you can’t really do if you’re actually publishing this first. What “Book 0” says to me is, “Nothing in here actually matters, because if it did, we’d call it ‘Book 1.'”) I understand what you’re trying to do — the first story of the first chunk of the expansive BorderLands saga — but it’s confusing at first glance.  My inclination would be to have a title for this “volume,” of which this is Book 1 (NOT 0!!!), and then have a supertitle proclaim it “A Tale of the BorderLands Saga” or somesuch.  (You could look to Katherine Kurtz’s Deryni books or other franchises which have discrete trilogies inside a larger tapestry to see how those have been marketed in the past.)

Other comments?

The author says:

ONE SLIP is a child endangerment thriller novel. It’s Nicholas Sparksish in that the child dies, but it’s not a romance,and despite the child dying, the book is edifying in the end. It’s a tear jerker.

Nathan says:

Two big unanswered questions: What gender is your protagonist, and what gender is your ideal reader? (Based on “Nicholas Sparks” and “tear jerker,” I want to assume the answer to the second is “female,” but…)  These make a tremendous difference in how to book is marketed and who the book is marketed to.

I’m still a little confused as to the general thrust of the book, since “thriller” doesn’t usually go with “tear jerker,” and “Nicholas Sparks” doesn’t usually go with “not a romance.” I will say that there’s not even a hint of menace on this cover. In fact, one could easily assume that it was a humorous drama, and the “one slip” of the title was what led to the child in the first place.