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?
A small suggestion, I would drop the ‘I’ in the series title to bring it down to a single line. The browsing reader looking at covers doesn’t need to immediately know this is the first book and I don’t see how it helps convince them to read the description. It can be mentioned in the description and usually a fantasy series has a page near the front of the book that lays out the books in sequence, so there is little danger of confusing readers if it is left off.
To contrast Nathan’s point on the series title, the complexity of the font makes it look like nothing more than a textured line serving as an artistic flourish in the thumbnail. If it were in a color that complemented the title in some way this would not be at all problematic and could be a benefit, toward this end the complex font helps slightly, but presently it clashes somewhat. Nathan’s suggestion of putting it at the top if the art has space is an option, or alternately you could try putting it above or below the bylines. I’m not sold on those options, but mostly because I tend to overuse them in my own work, so I’m biased presently.
I don’t think it’s bad to include the series title as-is, but if it were me I’d put the series title on the cover page and book spine only and leave it off the front of the exterior cover entirely.
It’s an odd thing to say, but think of it as the visual equivalent of ‘show don’t tell’ for writing. I’ve begun to think that the more you communicate with text on a cover the more it potentially distracts from whatever the artwork is conveying.
For example, the ambiance provided by the font for the cover text may be more important for the cover than what the text actually says. The cover needs the title and byline, it is expected, and needs them to be readable. But beyond that I’ve begun to feel its primary purpose is to divert attention away from itself and toward the art, to complement and emphasize the tone of the book and entice a browser to explore that tone by reading the blurb.
This would mean any textual content that can be shunted to the blurb should be, but it’s only a working theory at present.
I would put the ‘I’ on the spine, though. So if on a shelf in a library or something they can be ordered correctly and people know which to read next.
I second both these points about the ‘I’. Take it off the front, keep it on the spine.
I think at this point, because there are just so many series’ around, a series number indicator can almost be off-putting as one of the first things you take in about a book book (ie. it being on the cover).
People get the message ‘you’ll be signing up to so much of this’ before they’ve even bought into the one novel!
Once maybe a series was a novelty, now I think people are more likely to be slightly exhausted by the prospect, until after they’ve been convinced by the novel itself this is something they want more of.
And that’s only going to become more of an issue as the series goes on. You’ll want to keep this formatting, which will mean if the numbering is part of it you’ll have people clicking on your book, drawn in by this quality of artwork, something particular in the imagery they like… only to go ‘oh volume IV? Never mind’ before even reading your blurb!
I LOVE this!!! My only nit picks are the period after the c should be closer and the yellow of the title could match the yellow tones of the fire a bit more but that’s a minor nitppick that means absolutely nothing except what one person would prefer. This cover rocks.
The one thing I find confusing is that at a glance it looks like it’s by Bruno Castle. Maybe if the surnames were a little smaller? That would make more space between them.
Yeah–that bugged me, too. If they made the surnames a teeny bit closer, and used an ampersand between them, it would break it up visually and solve the “Bruno Castle” problem.
I think the series title needs a nice, simple display font. I mean it–something tastefully readable like good old Trajan Pro or Felix Titling; there are some really nice ones that would be simple, and work nicely against the foofier book title. To my eyes, the current font choice is like a sour note against everything else.
No other comments–brilliant work, really.
I’d agree. I don’t hate the layout of the two bylines but they need a little adjusting to not read as ‘Bruno Castle’ – especially at thumbnail.
One thing that might help is swapping the order so Castle is the name on the left.
But I think the size of the two forenames needs to come up.
And I think you need to look at the tracking (letter spacing). If you’re making the forenames bigger you’ll need to reduce the tracking in order to keep them from getting wider than the surnames. But I think you need to do that anyway. It looks odd to me that ‘Jaime’ has such wide tracking and ‘Castle’ comparatively narrow. It should be more
J A I M E
C A S T L E
rather than
J A I M E
CASTLE
This is great. This is the first cover I’ve seen on this site in…possibly ever that I would actively pick up and buy because of the cover. (Although the small typography suggestions people have made are smart.)
Great stuff, I’d say this is 80 – 90% of the way to being a great cover. But while every individual element is fine on its own, they are not quite hanging together to create a truly effective, confident cover.
I’ve written out my thoughts, and mocked up a version of the cover, to explain how everything could be pulling harder in the same direction.
https://www.kathrynrosamiller.com/blog-1/web-of-eyes
Kata, thank you for putting in words (in your blog post) what was bugging me about the title treatment. I really enjoyed your mockup.
My only complaints might be that there are too many typefaces and perhaps a little too much cleverness in their handling. Simplify things a bit and the cover will look better and the text will be easier to read.