The Salt March

Covers

The author says:

ONLY BLOOD CAN RINSE AWAY TYRANNY

After six hundred years, the Mednohail Empire lusts for a dominion where the sun never sets. The Empire grows restless, ashamed of its loss against the Heokolon Empire thirty years ago. Fueled by insatiable wrath, the Empire looks east once again, seeking to spread the scourge of its gods across the world. Roused by a new age of steel and weaponized sin, General Brónmal leads the Empire’s endless legions east. Driven to surpass his father’s failures in the first war, he takes up the duty for glory and penance.

Unknown to the Mednohail, the Heokolon Empire is ready, waiting like a spider. In secret, it has prepared its perfect soldiers, hoping to end Mednodorn’s reign of terror once and for all. With brutal discipline and weapons of glass, they ready themselves to cut down the Mednohail legions. Yet, lurking in the darkness of the coming conflict, agents of old initiate a scheme centuries in the making, hoping to deliver the world back into the hands of a forgotten evil.

Nathan says:

The first thought I had was, “Lower the swords!” Pull them down so that the text doesn’t overlap the pommels. All we’d lose is the bottom edge of the pile of salt, which isn’t essential visual information.

Anyone else?

Undisputed

Covers

The author says:

Ladies and gentlemen it’s now time for the main event of book publishing. Today in these very pages we’ll pit the twenty greatest Heavyweight boxers head to head to see who comes out on top. There’s no ducking tonight each warrior will fight the other in a fantasy league in some of the most exciting pugilistic combat to ever be written. Be witness to epic non stop action with a hundred and ninety incredible fights such as Muhammad Ali vs Mike Tyson, Lennox Lewis vs Riddick Bowe, George Foreman vs Sonny Liston and Rocky Mariano vs Joe Frazier. Steeped in history the blue ribbon division has experienced some of the most awe inspiring and exciting moments in sports. So let’s lace up those gloves and start the ring walks…

Nathan says:

I actually have no complaints or suggestions about this. None.

Anyone else have comments?

Bloody Lilies

Covers

The author says:

The book is about a PI who’s given a missing person’s case after the police decides the man to be a runaway. It’s a mystery book, targeted to young adults up and no specific genre (though probably to women than men).

Nathan says:

I think you can immediately see the biggest problem when you look at the cover in thumbnail: The lilies are practically invisible.

My advice: Move “Bloody” and “Lilies” together, and increase both brightness and saturation until the flowers look like flowers. (You can always burn it darker at top and bottom around the text.)

Other comments?

Moonsteed

Covers

The author says:

It’s a technothriller, but its primary target audience is probably women and girls.

Nathan says:

I’m very confused. You say it’s a technothriller, but your front cover is entirely any like any technothriller ever… and your back cover description, while involving espionage, is very clearly SF.

There’s at least a little SF in your front cover imagery, but only if the potential reader lingers long enough to see that that’s Jupiter in the sky, not just the moon.

There’s nothing wrong with the techniques by which the cover is rendered, but it doesn’t succeed in giving anyone in its target audience a signal that this is a book they’d want to read.

It really needs to scrapped back to the concept stage.

 

Frank Meets Greta and the Voodoo Curse

Covers

The author says:

Tag-Line: “Together but alone, Frank and Greta struggle to protect those they hold dear from both real-world mobsters and the unearthly monsters haunting the Rustbelt.”

Blurb: The Sultan, a drug kingpin with otherworldly mojo, is on the hunt, collecting debts. Which sends punk rocker Greta scrambling to save her hapless boyfriend. But all’s not lost. She’s got a wicked pair of Doc Martin’s: superb footwear for butt-kicking. And best of all, she’s got Frank, father of her junior high choir director, an ironworker whom the Sultan mistakes for a dimwitted pushover. He’s not. Because Frank has a burning desire to see his little princess’s youth orchestra concert, and he’ll smash through bedrock to get there… even though he hates that highfalutin Mozart crap. Problem is, Greta and Frank are stuck between a brewing modern-day wildcat strike and a 1966 racial uprising, placing years, firebombers, disgruntled hardhats, beleaguered shop owners, and the Sultan’s horde—dragons, demon bikers, Nazi stormtroopers, and whatnot—between Frank and his seat in the concert hall. Lacking superpowers but full of grit, determination, and moxie, they’ll claw their way back, or die trying.

Frank Meets Greta And The Voodoo Curse is book one of the Shantytown Voodoo books, a trio of stand-alone a character-driven magical realist novels. This novel addresses racism and the hard-scrabble life of America’s working-class using (and abusing) tropes from urban fantasy, horror, and crime fiction.

Nathan says:

I like the image, but the type treatment (a) is a complete impediment to reading comprehension, and (b) messes with the image beneath it.

Two-toned type is always tempting, but I don’t see one use in a hundred that isn’t a problem.

My suggestion: Right-justify the title and leave it all in light tones. That alone will do wonders for the cover.

Other suggestions?