The author says:

This is my second cover design for my novella “Carthage Atlantica”, an alternate-history tale about ancient Carthaginians from North Africa discovering the Americas in 200 BC. This time, I did a composition that made it look as if the war elephant was heading in the viewer’s direction, in response to your criticism of the previous cover design.

[original submission and comments here]

Nathan says:

Yes, you’ve taken some comments to heart, but it seems like you don’t know why those comments were made.  I’m again going to be extremely unfair by using those same Frank Frazetta comparisons:

Look at the strong use of contrasts to draw your eye to the important central figures. Backgrounds, when they exist, are atmospherized for much less contrast. There are no straight vertical lines; vertical lines are static. Instead, everything is focused around dynamic diagonals.  And the illustrations that were meant for book covers have areas in which the title can be inserted for maximum visibility.

Now compare that to yours. The trees and foliage are rendered with as much detail and contrast as the elephant; the “misting” effect only helps to flatten the perspective, making the central figures no more important to the eye than the background. You’ve even taken a step backwards as far as the type is concerned; while the title and byline in the original cover were too small and inobtrusive, they were at least readable against the background. In the new version, both are scrunched into spaces where they compete with — and lose to — the busy image (in the case of the byline, losing the battle entirely).

Here’s an exercise:

• Find a bunch of dynamic, adventurous old covers by Frank Frazetta, Boris Vallejo, etc. (The covers, not just the artwork. We don’t want to ignore the type placement here.)
• Do fifteen-second thumbnail sketches of each: Block in the title and byline, and indicate where the lights and darks are, where the lines and curves are. Heck, pull them into your graphics program and look at them in black and white to see where the impact is.
• Then start your cover from similar thumbnails. Block in big, readable areas for your title and byline, and where you want the viewer’s eye to concentrate.
• THEN start sketching out your artwork.

Other suggestions?

The author says:

The protagonist of Bump changes based on who is last touched, then changes again with that person’s next physical contact. The point of view changes to reveal the lives of dozens of different characters within one novel. Several genres are included in Bump, and the tone of the novel will change constantly as the story takes on the lives of various characters. The characters face loss, love, death, and the challenges of youth. Bump cannot be classified as either a romance, horror, crime, thriller, action, or adventure specifically, as it contains many elements which vary based on each characters narrative. There are happy endings, and not so happy endings, and some that are bitter sweet.

Nathan says:

Sounds fairly experimental. There aren’t any hard-and-fast rules about this as there are about specific genres, but I don’t think your present cover does the job — it’s technically well done, but doesn’t say ANYTHING about the story.

The first idea that came to me was a series of overlapping photographic faces, chained together by overlapping eyes, thus:

It might convey the idea of several protagonists or viewpoint characters as being one of the central conceits of the book.

Beyond that, I’m open to suggestions. Anyone?

The author says:

Here is a revised cover of A Bee In A Big Universe. A funner readable font-Better beehive-bee moved more center and down – moon as a crescent – planets moved a bit – tree reduced in size. I hope you like it. I’m just trying to improve my cover, lots of things I like about the cover just needed improving. Darker blues don’t work. because of the interior page colors. I think it looks good. I was hoping to find out what looked better the newer version or older one and to make improvements. It looks better on thumbnail.

[original submission and comments here]

Nathan says:

I definitely think that this version takes the best parts of the other two. The flower is immediately apparent to a preschooler, the bee’s solid eyes aren’t as psychedelic, and the hive no longer looks like the poop emoji. 🙂

I would make the title twice as big (shrink the flower and tree to give it room).

Other comments?

The author says:

Contrarian: can a duo of paid guns for hire stop a criminal syndicate before they cause irreparable environmental harm?

Nathan says:

Very cleanly done. I have four suggestions:

1. Either make the central silhouette bigger, or lighten the background right around him to make him stand out more, especially in thumbnail.
2. Make the darks in the title lighter so it can be read at thumbnail size.
3. Where’s the byline?
4. The length of your tagline is cumbersome. Try to distill it down to something pithier.

Other comments?