The author says:
This is a mock-up for the first book in a series, so some of the images still contain watermarks.
Robots never *meant* to take over. They’re just so damn useful. When a machine can do as much work as three men, the labor force was quickly replaced by much more efficient androids. As the number of robots grew, jobs disappeared, and everyone in the middle class found themselves obsolete. While the wealthiest few prosper, most of humanity has been thrown into extreme poverty.
Leona lives a life of privilege, while Roemell never knows where his next meal will come from. A terrorist group–the lurch–starts targeting wealthy estates, burning them to the ground. Leona and Roemell find themselves thrown together, but even though they’ve both lost everything dear to them, that doesn’t mean they’ll be able to work together to find and take down the terrorist.
Nathan says:
First off, THANK YOU for looking for feedback at the mockup stage. My hackles rise when an author says, “This is the final version of my cover…” because that’s not really inviting comments.
I like the design, but I wonder if it doesn’t need a human element to it, since your description is of a story about the people, not the robots.
As far as the design itself goes, you could use more contrast between the highlights on the robot and the background. Maybe tone down the flare in the title, and instead make the reflection on the front of the robot’s head into the bright spot on the cover.
Other comments?
I like it. The robot image is very attention grabbing and makes it clear that it’s science fiction. Depending on how much of a part the robots play in the story, you could include a human element, but I’m not sure it’s needed. But I’m partial to less-cluttered book covers.
Very nice!
I think that the robot could overlap the word “Lurch” more than it it does without impacting the readability. (See my additional comments below.)
There is a lot going on, as Nathan and Gail pointed out, and I’m not sure if it all adds anything to the effectiveness of the cover. The flames might work as a suggestion of the danger and action that is part of the story—but they need to be much more easily read as flames. As it is, it was only on my second glance that I realized what those brownish-orange shapes were.
I’m not too sure if the flare adds much, either. If anything, it distracts from the robot, which is already having to fight for attention.
There is really no good reason for the title being quite as large as it is, especially when it forces you to make the robot’s head take up less than a quarter of the cover. You might try a less vertical typeface. This would allow you to keep the title running edge to edge while at the same time allowing the robot’s head to be much larger. And the latter could still overlap the text to a degree.
Getting a human element into the cover is a very good idea. Perhaps one meaningful way to do this would be to have a face reflected in the metallic dome of the robot’s head (something that would be especially effective if the robot were larger).
I like the simplicity and the way the text fits with the color of the robot. If there is more to the robot image I would also make the title slightly shorter to highlight the robot. I’d also reduce the intensity of the flames, or exchange them for a subtle scif background reflecting the content of the book. The title needs to be more crisp, also, but I understand this is a mockup. Pretty good one, too.
I like your cover idea. As already stated by others, though, make your title take up less room on the page and make the robot bigger. The fire would have more impact if you can make it just a little brighter. The flames reflecting off the metal robot would add more continuity, but would required a lot of artistic work to pull it off properly. I don’t agree with others that humans are needed. As a science fiction reader, this cover would pull on my imagination enough to make me read the blurb, which is half the battle.
Also, make sure ‘IN THE’ lines up with ‘LURCH’
I like it, rather a lot. I like the fonts, the layout, pretty much everything. About the only thing that doesn’t blow my skirt up is the monochromatic tone of it, and the hint/appearance of the letters as being rounded–being placed around a rod or something. Not sure why the rounded appearance of the letters bothers me, though.
I do think that the monochromatic tone of the cover might not do you any favors. I wonder if there’s any way to put a bit more contrasting color into it? Perhaps in the flames?
But even if you make no changes at all, it’s a very solid cover. I’d also like to thank you for bringing us a mockup; I honestly don’t understand when someone submits a cover and says, “this is the published cover.” Ooooookay, then.
Good job.
Hitch, on the topic of submitting a “finished cover” vs. a “mockup”, this site has posted that you need to specify if the cover is a rough draft, or a finished cover. That set of directions gave me a bit of a problem as well. When I submitted my cover, it was not a rough draft. Nor was it a finished cover in a technical sense. Sure, I had every intention of making suggested fixes if good suggestions were made, which there were enough for me to rethink the entire thing. But it was far from a mockup, either. Honestly, I think the posted site rules should be changed to say if it is a proof of concept image, or one ready to publish, but still would be changed as needed. As reviewers, we need to always believe that the person posting his/her cover really wants to make improvements, welcoming constructive criticism, and not assume they are only expecting posts to do nothing but stroke their egos.
I figured the mockup/finished bit was whether the submitter thought it was adequately polished to be considered by the community as they would a finished product, rather than as a learning attempt or case study. Essentially the difference between ‘What can I do with this?’ and ‘Did this work?’, asking for advice vs. judgement. Is that an odd view?
I think it is a perfectly reasonable viewpoint.
It’s a fair point; we recently had a cover in which the author/publisher/cover designer stated “this is the cover of a published book,” or something like that, and I think it kind of threw everyone. It wasn’t clear what the submitter was saying. Maybe Nathan can adjust or fine-tune the wording to something more like “state the level of development,” or “state of development,” etc. There is something weird, if you’re a donor of time here, to see something and think that the submitter has no intention of making changes–and that’s probably an incorrect inference, too, to add to the kerfuffle.
🙂
As others have said, it’s a very good cover, but I really don’t care for the dull colors at all; it needs more contrast. Maybe you could experiment with making the flames yellow or even blue.
This is one of the kind of covers we get here on rare occasions that is already so well-done that I see little need to offer advice. The only real changes it needs are very minor tweaks indeed: specifically, bump up the contrast a bit, increase the color saturation (especially for the flames, which should be bright orange like real ones), and (of course) get the licenses for the stock images so you can clear out the watermarks. A few quick purchases from your browser and the application of a few tools from your image editor, and you’ve got your final draft.
I can only second what RK has suggested. Even my own comments are more in the realm of fine-tuning than anything else.
I really like this, it’s a great, confident composition. It’s a good cover that could become excellent.
I agree with the points others have made about greater contrast etc. But I have one broader niggle and it might not even be about the cover so much as the title – it all depends. The issue is tonal wonk.
I’m left pretty unsure of the tone and specific genre of this novel. Obviously it’s futuristic science fiction and the robot uprising aspect is suggested pretty immediately and successfully. But the title, and something about the blurb, hint to me this isn’t exactly a po-faced super serious action thriller version of the subject matter? But rather something with a lighter, or more human-scale, tone?
The opening line of your blurb certainly communicates a wryness. But it’s the title too: ‘In The Lurch’ is a folky, wry kind of phrase. It’s not big or epic or flashy. It contrasts oddly with the robot uprising subject matter. And maybe that’s the very idea – a robot uprising treated in a surprisingly wry manner.
Obviously the title is a play on an in-novel idea (that there’s this group called the Lurch) but a. people don’t know that till they read the blurb and they won’t get that far if the title puts them off and b. that fact only makes the title feel more playful and light.
Now none of that is a problem if this is the tone that your novel takes, and a playful/warm tone and treatment of the subject matter is exactly what you want to communicate. But in that case I don’t feel your cover is striking that tone design-wise. Everything is very stylish and ominous and it just kind of clashes with this wry title.
I’m not sure how one would reconcile these two clashing elements. It would come down to working more personality into the visuals. It’s just hard to know exactly what that would be without knowing more about the books and it’s tone/content.
For example, your font could be doing some heavy lifting. Right now it’s a serviceable serious SF/futuristic san-serif. Choosing a different font with different treatments will juxstapose interestingly against the robotic figure to imply other ideas.