The author says:

A 12 month guide of devotionals. The devotionals were written to encourage women that have been through a lot of pain from breakups and/or divorces based on my personal experiences from both.

Nathan says:

I can appreciate the motives that inspired the design — something soft and non-confrontational — but I think the type treatment is too underwhelming.

Italic fonts don’t work well with excessive spacing between the letters.  Using a slightly stronger font at a larger size for the title will make it more visible and readable in thumbnail.

The subtitle is written in a font that doesn’t seems “chosen” so much as it just happened.

Is there really an apostrophe in your surname?

The way the image is cropped, there’s a shadow all the way down the left edge; it makes it look as if you scanned the image from a book.

Other comments?

The author says:

I have made this new version of Loveweaver to replace the previous cover I sent a couple of months ago. This cover is a still a wip.

About the book: The year 895. Slayde’s job as an top military leader of Kent is to rid England of the last of the Viking raiders. But Llyrica is no ordinary Viking. She’s a beauty with a mysterious past … and a talent for weaving song spells. Even as Slayde saves her from drowning, he knows Llyrica will be a dangerous distraction. Llyrica is now a stranger in a strange land on a mission to fulfill a deathbed promise. But she must also find her missing brother. This man, Slayde, known as The StoneHeart in his country, seems determined to block her at every turn. And yet she can’t help but be drawn to the affectionate, loving side of him that awakens when he sleeps – The sleepwalker. Unknown to both Llyrica and Slayde, each will use the other to accomplish their quests. Both will also fall under the song spell that she wove into the braid of his tunic. Will her Lovespell ensure a happily ever after for them? Or condemn them to a love that was never meant to be?

[original submission and comments here]

Nathan says:

A much more respectable collection of elements this time out; good work! All my comments are tweaks to this design.

1. I would make the model’s head larger, so that the title overlaps onto the shoulder and hair beneath the chin (it’s not like there’s necessary detail there). In addition to enlarging the focus of the image, it would also put a little bit of a darker background behind the title, which would help it stand out more at thumbnail.
2. The middle line of the cover blurb (specifically, the ellipsis) goes way too far to the right. Bring it back so that no character is further to the right than the last letter of “heart” in the line above.
3. Move the byline down so that it’s got solid trees behind it; that will improve readability immensely at thumbnail size.

Any other suggestions?

The author says:

When you lose everything, who are you? In November of 1929, the last autumn leaves started a domino effect in Fall River. At a time when most give thanks, others lurk at society’s fringes, waiting for a shot at revenge. Power. Redemption. A Mafia hit leaves Leo Riley homeless and at the mercy of Oguina, a powerful monster under an ancient curse. A hunter with skin in this game stalks the streets, playing cat-and-mouse with the creatures he’s sworn to eliminate. The capo di tutti capi with a secret gazes into a moral abyss, threatening to take his men with him if he falls. All struggle to hold on to humanity. Unlikely allies join forces, fighting for their rights to Fall River’s streets and their very survival. Some will fall, some will rise, but can there ever be a winner when crime and change come to call?

Genre: Alternative History, Speculative Fiction
Setting: 1929 New England
Target: Adult readers

Nathan says:

So what I’m getting from the description is a Depression-era urban fantasy/crime drama. However, I’m seeing not seeing the urban fantasy part from the cover, just old-timey crime.  I think that if you’re going to go for one or the other on your cover (crime drama or urban fantasy), urban fantasy is the way to go, because readers looking for urban fantasy are more likely to accept a historical crime setting setting than readers looking for crime drama are willing to accept urban fantasy in the story.

(I’m not saying you’ve GOT to choose one or the other; I’m just saying that, of the two, an urban fantasy cover would probably attract more interested readers than a crime drama cover.)

Other thoughts?

The author says:

A long buried secret. A persistent archeologist. And a dangerous covert organization…

Smithsonian archaeologist, Roslin Williams gets an amazing opportunity to excavate the site where the White House once stood hundreds of years ago. When the excavation begins, Roslin stumbles upon a shocking find—the Air Force One plane containing human remains and a mysterious briefcase, which only leads to more questions than answers… The televised dig immediately attracts the attention of a powerful shadow organization intent on ensuring the secrets contained within Air Force One remain buried, and a hitman is dispatched to eliminate Roslin. After she is attacked, Mark Appleton, a former Secret Service Agent, is hired to watch over her, but Appleton realizes with Roslin’s life in danger, there’s no one they can trust.

As the layers of betrayal and deception are slowly peeled away, a scandalous cover-up is revealed that will have worldwide repercussions. Together, Appleton and Roslin embark on a perilous journey to outrun the evil forces allied against them in order to unravel this ancient conspiracy. And unless they can avoid the sinister adversary who shadows their every move—this volatile, ancient truth will remain hidden forever.

Nathan says:

The biggest issue I see is one of mis-branding.

Your description says that this is hundreds of years after the White House and Air Force One are destroyed. By definition, then, you’ve got a science fiction novel.  But your cover sells it as a straight (contemporary) political thriller. That means that the people who pick it up/click on it looking for a political thriller are going to be turned off by it actually being science fiction, and the political science fiction readers who would enjoy the novel won’t pick it up, thinking it’s a contemporary thriller.

The publisher says:

Astrologer’s Proof features a clandestine group of people who have all the money, connections and computing power to decide whether Astrology is real. Using elaborate hacking schemes, they secretly obtain massive amounts of data on the American people to perform a grand astrological experiment. The story takes place in present day America over a two year period.

Genre: Science Fiction

Target audience: Readers of soft science fiction, contemporary fiction, techno-thrillers. Astrology lovers.

Authors’ readers Astrologer’s Proof may appeal to: Kevin Wignall, Michael C. Grumley, Douglas E. Richards, Adam Fawer, Ray Bradbury, Kurt Vonnegut.

(We are trying to decide if the silhouette man helps the layout or not.)

Nathan says:

Of the two, definitely the one with the silhouette. Without the awareness of scale that the human figure brings, the shapes along the side aren’t immediately recognizable as computer banks.

I will note that the man’s shadow doesn’t seem to match the single light source visible.

Some of the words you use to describe the story, as well as authors you cite like Kevin Wignall, Michael C. Grumley, Douglas E. Richards, etc. definitely puts this book into suspense-thriller territory.  However, I don’t think the cover supports that. There’s not enough foreboding to it; it’s too centered, too clean, and the title doesn’t “loom” enough.  You should look at the covers for the authors you list and see how to signal to readers that this book is for them.

My five-minute redo actually took 10+ minutes; I recently replaced my computer, and hadn’t restored all my fonts.  But you can see where I’m heading here:

Other comments?