The author says:

This book cover is the final concept made by me. Not sure if this is eye-catching or not. Set in the current time period, a male human from another planet travels to Earth to become a hero of the people living under a global apocalyptic dystopian tyrannic rule. He wears a nanosuit in a liquid metal chrome texture and calls himself Silverwolf.

Nathan says:

Unless your story largely occurs in space, I think you’re making a mistake with a space cover. Both superhero novels and post-apoc novels are popular right now among Kindle readers — something that indicates both from the cover would trigger a lot more interest than a generic space picture.  And it wouldn’t have to be terribly expensive, either — there are cheap stock post-apoc landscape images, and you would just need someone to insert a silvery glowing figure hovering above.

Other thoughts?

The author says:

I posted this book cover months back on your website, and I am very grateful for your feedback, as well as the feedback of your followers. I have since tweaked the cover a bit, and would appreciate if you could post this with the original. I am really curious what people think of this new one versus the original.

[original submission and comments here]

Nathan says:

Since most of the specific suggestions on the original submission came from the commenters, I’ll let them do the heavy lifting this time around. My only comments are that a couple of the tweaks seem like steps backward to me:

• Having the “D.M.” of the byline in a larger font size looks like misplaced emphasis.
• The map you’ve added in the background is clearly mirrored — all the text is backward.

Other comments?

  

The author says:

My previous submissions for this project were all self created and variously unsatisfying. (some were so broken that not even the arrayed talent here at Cover Critics could fix them) After running a very exciting and intense cover design competition at 99Designs I have three finalists to choose between. If this book were a standalone I would be happy to have any of these three as its cover. However, this is intended to launch a series so I need a strong brand identity and a layout that is flexible enough to stretch across all the different characters and situations. (At the moment my heart favours one design and my head a different one) Which would you choose? or Have I missed something fundamentally terrible about them all?

Proto-blurb: The Aether Guard has patrolled the Borderlands for aeons protecting the nations of the Rationalle from the encroaching Realm of Chaos and its vile Spawn. When a flesh eating shape shifter slips past a renowned Patrol Captain, both personal ambition and the sanctity of the most sacred relic in the cosmos are put at risk. Can the monster be found and stopped before it is too late, or will Chaos finally reign for all of eternity?

(Original submission and comments here)

Nathan says:

Designating them “#1,” “#2” and “#3” in the order they appear here, I would go with the artwork for #3, although possibly with the title treatment from #1 (it’s more distinctively branded). Then you just need to make sure that the covers for the following books in the series also feature a dynamic close-up character portrait.

Other opinions?

The author says:

A travel guide covering Australias East Coast. It is targetted at young men and has more of a focus on adventure activities and nightlife than your usual travel guidebook.

Nathan says:

…Sorry. What were you saying?

You know what? I’m going to leave the critiques on this one entirely up to our commenters, because I’ve got nothing.

The author says:

An action-thriller set in a 1980s retro-future after a devastating world war. It takes place in the South East Asian refugee metropolis of New Saigon and details one man going against a ruthless mercenary company he used to work for to rescue his love.

Nathan says:

Hmm.  It definitely has an ’80s vibe, but I don’t know if it’s in the way that you mean — I look at this, and I think of cheap direct-to-video action movies on VHS cranked out by Roger Corman starring Don “The Dragon” Wilson. The fact that your stylized setting sun graphic looks like the logo for Corman’s New Horizons production company exacerbates that:

I don’t know how many people are in the target audience for that kind of ’80s nostalgia.

Also, “Fury” is very hard to read in thumbnail, and the UZI becomes almost invisible.

Unless the ’80s-ness is a big of the appeal — everyone wears Swatch Watches, there’s lots of kickboxing, and you can practically hear the synth-score when reading it — I think you might instead want to play up the post-apoc/cyberpunk vibe that I imagine from the description. (Remember, Blade Runner was ’80s too.)

Other comments?