The author says:
Eidola, a world recovering from a two hundred year war with the demonic forces of hel still finds itself in the shadow of the relics left behind, giving rise to a new profession. Chaos drifters, highly skilled adventurers and explorers whose purpose is to gather and neutralise these items. Brail a new drifter finds it difficult to maintain his financial situation and his crumbling party. That is until he meets the reclusive and mysterious Von, offering to take part in a job which could put their names with the best. But are Von’s intensions so pure? And what is his relationship with the vile and illusive humanoid species known as the “empties”.
Nathan says:
It’s a pretty good cover… but not for this book.Ā Your blurb speaks of action-adventure in the ruins of a (SF? fantasy?) world. Your cover would probably catch the eye of someone who wants a grittier version of Twilight. The people who would like your book aren’t going to click on the cover, and the people who click on the cover will read the blurb and realize the book isn’t for the.
I have to agree with Nathan. It’s an attractive cover…but not for this book. There is really nothing that conveys any sense of the book you describe. I suspect that subjectivity is getting in the way here: the cover is more significant to you than it might be to the prospective reader because you are already intimately familiar with the story.
Hi, thankyou for the feedback š Initially i had another cover that leaned much more into what you and Nathan say, its only when i posted it in an author help group on facebook that alot of people said they much prefare this one.
Its been abit of a catch 22 really
It’s been advised here before, but look at covers of other books in the same genre as yours (preferably that are selling well), and find a way to do something similar.
Save this cover for another book.
Indeed, when I first saw the cover thumbnail, I figured from all the spiny and thorny stuff here that it was for some kind of old-school horror novel. (Twilight, it’s worth remembering, is basically old-school horror turned into YA romance.) While your summary mentions a few things associated with that genre (e.g a demonic invasion), however, it overall reads more like the entirely different genre of adventure set in a world of fantasy/science fiction/both. Basically, it’s a story that could have been inspired by any of several dozen old Japanese RPGs (where fantasy and science fiction tend to mix freely; see e.g. Chrono Trigger for just one example).
In short, the cover is for one genre while the contents are from an entirely different genre. While I won’t deny a story about roving bands of adventurers and explorers could be (and in fact occasionally has been) set in a world full of horror story monsters (e.g. demons, ghosts, vampires, werewolves, witches & warlocks, zombies, Frankenstein-style mad scientists who reanimate corpses, even mutant abominations and/or hostile space aliens), even that kind of adventure story’s book cover should draw its aesthetic more from stuff like the old Gargoyle’s Quest and Heroes of Might & Magic games’ stories than from anything in a straight-up horror story. That is to say, your cover should focus primarily on showing an actual party of adventurers, even if the background architecture and population and vegetation in their world looks like something out of a Halloween-themed horror movie.
Incidentally, is this place “hel” mentioned your summary just a misspelling due to a typo, or is it an alternate spelling due to the story being set in a different world where the demons’ abode just happens to be called “Hel” in the local language(s)? Either way, I’d say a named place is a proper noun and the “H” in it should therefore be capitalized. If the “empties” mentioned in the summary are also a named species, their species name should also be capitalized just as fictional species like Klingons’ and Vulcans’ are.
Bottom line: make your cover look like an adventure book’s cover. If you want to put horror-themed stuff in the background, that’s fine, but make sure prospective readers know upfront that this is an adventure story first and foremost. Start by focusing on a party of these “chaos drifters” (whatever they look like) in the foreground before filling in the background with glimpses of the story’s setting.
Hi, thankyou for the feedback š
It does have some romance in it but its far from the main subject matter, its only really towards the end and is part of the main character overcoming his trauma. Like i said in another comment i did have another cover that i drew myself which leaned into the subject matter more but i posted it in an author group on FB and alot of people prefared this one, so its been abit of a catch 22 really.
Also i went for the spelling “Hel” on purpose for the old greek spelling. But you’re right with the capitals that was a mistake on my part, thankyou for pointing that out.