Cover concept art -- opinions please

[HareBrain]

Attached is a sketch I made for a book cover. Forgive its, er, energetic roughness, for which I believe the technical term is "scribbling". And ignore the lettering. In case it's not clear, it's an underwater scene showing a freediver (i.e. wetsuit and fins, but no scuba tank) diving though a shaft of light towards a large stone medusa-like head resting on the seabed. Possible hints of other things in the background: sunken steamship, ancient buildings etc. I imagine greeny-blues and high contrast.

Would/does this make a good book cover, do people think?

 

[alchemist]

Hi HB. I was going to email you about this, but here we are...

The image seems quite redolent of classic SFF to me; Boy's Own adventures, that sort of stuff.I like it, but I would worry that it doesn't seem Fantasy enough. Maybe it needs another element to add that extra factor.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

Might be fine. hard to know without seeing a final version.
Of course when you are really famous the title is small at the bottom and your name is twice the size of your example text Not only that, but probably some agency is paid silly money to produce a poorer idea.

Me Cynical?

 

[HareBrain]

Thanks chaps.

Might be fine. hard to know without seeing a final version.

Trouble is, a decent final version would be beyond my own abilities and I'll have to pay for it, hence canvassing opinion first. Though I could do a less rough one with some colour.

Alc, if you have any ideas about this missing element, gimme.

 

[alchemist]

Thanks chaps.


Alc, if you have any ideas about this missing element, gimme.

Well, I know there's an encounter with a spirit down there. A full-on spectre might draw too much attention, so how about a ghostly presence in the background; vague, like a watermark, as if only the reader can see it and the diver is unaware?

 

[HareBrain]

Well, I know there's an encounter with a spirit down there.

That's sort of encapsulated by the stone head, which is a symbol of the whole concept rather than anything actually in the story.

What if I could make the goddess's head/mask seem like something half-stone, half-alive? Something ancient and fossilised reawakening?

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

My suggestion is that you don't make it too busy. You need a striking image (which you have now), but you shouldn't distract too much from the title or your name. You need relatively blanks spaces for those. Hints of other things in the background sound good if they are shadowy. I know you said ignore the lettering, but I assume the cross-hatching at the top left is supposed to indicate a basically empty area of water so that the title will show up well?

 

[HareBrain]

I know you said ignore the lettering, but I assume the cross-hatching at the top left is supposed to indicate a basically empty area of water so that the title will show up well?

I'm not sure. As you can see, I experimented with putting the title in the top-left, but I don't think that works, and I think it would be better, as you say, to have a clear area at the top for the title, and my name at the bottom. But that then leaves the top-left area of dark water rather blank -- unless it's that area that could include some suggestion of a submerged building.

(The basic idea with the "suggested" elements would be to make only the main elements visible in the thumbnail, to keep it simple and contrasty, with the suggested elements only visible at full-size, to make the full-size version more interesting.)

 

[alchemist]

That's sort of encapsulated by the stone head, which is a symbol of the whole concept rather than anything actually in the story.

What if I could make the goddess's head/mask seem like something half-stone, half-alive? Something ancient and fossilised reawakening?

As a plain head, it could just be a temple and nothing more. But if it seems half-alive, it would work better for me. How you/the artist does that is another matter!

 

[Brian G Turner]

Personally I would suggest something more neutral - a plain cover with the medusa-head in the centre. That would allow it to appeal to a wider range of readers, while providing a striking image to show on Amazon thumbnails.

If you don't want to pay for an artist, I'm sure you should be able to lift a photo of an actual archaeological piece that fits your story - at least roughly.

You taking this the self-published route, then? Would have thought you'd get somewhere with this among agents?

 

[Jo Zebedee]

For me, it doesn't do the story justice - sorry. It looks like a boy's own adventure and not carrying the gravitas TGP deserves. Also, on a thumbnail I think it'll be busy.

What happened to that amazing local artist you chatted to?

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

The diving is important to the story though, and with the right artist an underwater scene could look magical.

I'm trying to remember, aren't the temples pyramids? Underwater pyramids in the background would suggest a fantasy world to me.

 

[HareBrain]

Thanks for the replies, all.

For me, it doesn't do the story justice - sorry. It looks like a boy's own adventure and not carrying the gravitas TGP deserves. Also, on a thumbnail I think it'll be busy.

Busy even though there are only really two elements, the diver and the head, that would be visible in a thumbnail?

What happened to that amazing local artist you chatted to?

She'll need some idea of what I want, though.

Personally I would suggest something more neutral - a plain cover with the medusa-head in the centre. That would allow it to appeal to a wider range of readers, while providing a striking image to show on Amazon thumbnails.

Robert Masello has a cover something like that for The Medusa Amulet

Interestingly, whilst looking for that link, I came across this.

Which is freakishly apposite, because it shows a stylised medusa-type goddess inside a pyramid!

I'm wondering if something like that would work better?

You taking this the self-published route, then? Would have thought you'd get somewhere with this among agents?

Maybe I would, but I'm thinking I'd like to go self-published for this one, for several reasons. I hope to have other irons in the traditional fire before too long.


By the way, if anyone who knows the story would like to suggest possible subjects for a cover, I'd love to hear them.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Sorry was a little harried earlier when I replied. I know the diving is essential, so have no problem with that. But yes, the shaft of light, the various colours, the other hints and a title and author's name - I think it could be busy (but my current obsession is the reduction of detail.)

Re what I'd like more - the scaping. It's more central than the ziggurats and all, and would fit so well with what your artist was good at - the natural stuff. I'd love an Orc/Otter dreamlike, magey cover. Which helps not at all but you did ask.

And re self-published. I think you could get an agent but whatever way you go, I'll buy it. I need to know what happens, darn it.

 

[HareBrain]

not carrying the gravitas TGP deserves.

I'd love an Orc/Otter dreamlike, magey cover.

Because nothing has more gravitas than an otter in a mask.

I kid, I kid. Actually, after thinking the idea unworkable, I did come up with two possibilities to do with the scaping scenes. (Sadly, Orc's scaping scenes with Otter aren't as exciting as Hana's.)

The first is Orc and Otter descending the back stairs at the hotel:

The ends of roots appeared through the faded wallpaper; ivy mantled the stair-rail. Down and round they went, until they’d gone several times the height of the hotel, and the walls were damp earth and the steps rough-shaped stone, and water dripped, and the only light came from the landing high above and the Otherworld still far below.

In this case I might go for a POV angle and colour range something like this cover. I think it would look intriguing at full-size -- Orc's tattoos, Otter in his mask, nature taking over the staircase and the light coming from the bottom -- but it might look quite muddy as a thumbnail.

Then there's the road of bones from Orc's scape on the ship:

There was no ship’s corridor, but a vast mire of red mud beneath a red sky heavy with drifting smoke. Bodies and machine-wreckage littered the wasteland: soldiers and heavy guns and, insanely, warships grounded in mud, and other machines Orc couldn’t identify, and shreds of flags.

[...]

Then an idea came to him. He tried to assert a road, to create it by visualising it. And a road came. But instead of stone paving, what pushed up through the mud and the bodies and the wreckage were bones, interlocking to make a trackway.

In this one, I picture us facing Orc and Otter on the road with it receding behind them, surrounded by the red landscape. I think this could be very effective full-size, and might also intrigue as a thumbnail because why is someone standing in a red landscape? I also think it works well with the title, because it suggests that the war-wrecked world is part of the Goddess Project, or a result of it.

Any thoughts on those?

 

[The Judge]

My only thought is the sadly depressing one that book covers aren't there to illustrate the book, but to make readers pick the book up. To that end, wonderful as those ideas appear to me, particularly the latter** a half-naked Cass might be a better actual draw.


** I can envisage the Nash Totes Meer as the background

 

[HareBrain]

My only thought is the sadly depressing one that book covers aren't there to illustrate the book, but to make readers pick the book up.

Absolutely, and that's really what I'm working on, but I can only go (at the moment) by what kind of cover makes me pick up a book. I love the Peake cover I linked to, for example, but a quick look round Waterstone's this morning made me wonder what most of the publishers were thinking.

Actually, I used to be involved with some online surveys for new books put out by a major publisher, and now I think about it, they didn't seem to have much of a clue either.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Be nice, Monsieur Hare.

I like the idea of either of those - they're less generic, for a start. A man diving for a statue tells us little about the book, or even the genre - it could be James Bond, or a crime, or a love story set under the waves, tra-la, or historical... A bridge of bones, or roots appearing through wallpaper, at least say fantasy of some kind to me. And I think if one could convert to a thumbnail well, that'd be good.

 

[HareBrain]

OK, I've done a "better" version of the diving one where hopefully the fantasy elements are more obvious (though because it's coloured pencils I couldn't get the light/shade contrasty enough -- also I didn't leave enough space at the top for lettering) and a quick mock-up of the "road of bones" one (you'll have to accept my word that Orc's face looked great until I inked over it). Any thoughts?

 

[Abernovo]

I quite like the diving version, but it doesn't tell me it's fantasy*. It could be an adventure, as others have commented, although the giant underwater snakes make it less likely. Perhaps some ghostly light/presence in the background would do it? Or a simple picture of the statue's face, maybe with scenes going on in her eyes? As TJ says, it doesn't have to be exact to the story so much as in the spirit and intended to draw the casual browser in.

Not so keen on the standing figure. Too static for my tastes. And, of course, my usual caveat that this is all only my (perhaps dodgy) opinion. Best of luck with it, mate.


*Despite the not fantasy enough comment, I'm not keen on covers that bludgeon me over the head with genre. They can be too reminiscent of the poor quality, lurid covers of the 70s (although some are more recent) that in my opinion give many sff books a bad image, and poorly represent the genres. /soapbox being put away.