The Moon Etherium Cover Art & Poll

[rowyn]

I set a release date for The Moon Etherium, my magic-rich fantasy romance: September 26!

That means it's time to freak out about the cover some more!

So I spent like 20 hours working on a painting for the cover several weeks ago. I have become increasingly less happy with it.  I tweaked a few things about it  that particularly bothered me, and I'm okay with it now. But I'm not sure it's the best possible choice.

I fiddled with some alternates a couple of weeks ago, and while my quick Twitter poll favored one of them, I kind of hated it. I decided to do some more variants on the same general theme. I actually did five total, but I'm only showing the one I like best here. And a poll, of course.  Because poll.

The lettering is a placeholder, so don't worry about that part. alinsa will be doing the actual text layout. I just threw some words on so it would look cover-ish.


[Poll #2054073]

Comments

[haikujaguar.livejournal.com]

*thinks her opinion counts more because she's done research on cover art* >.>

[rowyn]

I weight your vote several times more heavily than anybody else's! The general tide is very strongly against my painting style, though. :/ Someday I will get it together and either become a master artist or succeed at hiring a talented one.

... I am not sure which of these is more unlikely. I mean, I'd ASSUME hiring one is easier and would take approximately 1/10,000th the time. And YET. -_-

[haikujaguar.livejournal.com]

My concern is that the similarity in styles will trick people into thinking this is a new series set in the same setting, or that it's the same series, just a different set of books in it. Hopefully the strong contrast in colors will make it obvious it's not, but then when you get to The Sun Etherium... well, we're back to warm colors again.

I can appreciate everyone saying they like the silhouette covers, but they are (helpfully) approaching this book as if it's your only one. I'm looking at your entire work for sale as a whole and saying 'How do we help people figure out which book belongs with which series, and which book to buy next?'

I want you to avoid making the mistakes I did with branding. You have two (now three) books to sell, so it's still early enough that you can keep these things from getting out of hand. If you do what I did and wait until you have 20+ books out, fixing the branding issues so readers can figure out what belongs with what... that becomes horrible and I want to spare you that. -_-

[rowyn]

*nodnods*

I'm gonna try adding some subtle shading to The Moon Etherium cover, so it's not quite as flat/papercut-style as A Rational Arrangement. For The Sun Etherium, I'd use sky-blue instead of purple for the background, with a white sun (that will not be the dominant feature like the moon is for TME). That'll hopefully keep it away from the cream and browns of ARA while still looking like a day-lit scene.

Assuming I don't have someone else re-do TME and do TSE's cover, like a sensible author. -_-

[whitefangedwolf.livejournal.com]

Hmm... The challenge is that The Moon Etherium is a fantasy novel with a strong romance plot line. If I looked at the painted cover with the tagline and didn't know anything about the book, I would have guessed it was a romance about two lovers throwing everything to the wind for feelings, which it's totally not, and skipped a novel I would have thoroughly enjoyed.
On the other hand, the poses on the the silhouette cover make it read weakly as a romance cover and not as a fantasy cover at all. I think Miro's pose could be adjusted to make the silhouette cover read as a fantasy cover, but it depends on how you're planning on marketing the book.
If you're planning on targeting romance readers, I'd scrap the tagline for one that better fits the romantic plot line. If you're hoping to pull in fantasy readers who like romance in their fantasy novels, I think that neither of the covers are currently suitable.

[rowyn]

If you're hoping to pull in fantasy readers who like romance in their fantasy novels, I think that neither of the covers are currently suitable.

So, what would you suggest for that purpose? :)

[terrycloth.livejournal.com]

Maybe something with the phoenix rose in it? Not necessarily dominating, but looking dangerous. Then you could have the couple looking at it instead of each other but obviously still being a couple. But with their attention on the plot, it'd be more obvious that most of the story isn't about them falling in love.

...this may just be me indulging in my love of bright contrasting colors though.

[rowyn]

I could put a blazing angry fire-bird above them! It would have nothing to do with actual events of the book but it would kinda-sorta be evocative of them?

... I am so torn between "I should make sure this is as good an advertisement as I can manage" and "I am so sick of this I just want to work on the next book already."

[archangelbeth]

Self-Publishing means you can always go back later and fix the cover.

[whitefangedwolf.livejournal.com]

If you want to be plot-relevant and don't want to put the phoenix rose on the cover, nothing says fantasy like chained-up young maiden in bondage wear!

(I'm joking, please don't do that.)

Seriously, I think terrycloth's suggestion is a good one and can't think of anything insightful to add to it at the moment.

[rowyn]

:P

I did try the bird thing, though.

[archangelbeth]

Hm. Actually... Stick a moderately faint logo/rose thing in the moon behind them? The "Mysterious Symbol" might indicate that there's a plot line that's at least as important as the relationship plot. Stick with the purples, make the rose/design a different color to stand out (despite being faint/having a high transparency), make the viewer wonder what the heck the design is all about -- and then draw them into the nuances with the blurb.

Or so I'd give a shot, anyway.

[rowyn]

Oh, that's a cool idea. I already tried the bird thing and am back to "more sick of dealing with this than I am unhappy with the possible covers". I will see if I have regained any enthusiasm for the process later in the week. -_-

[archangelbeth]

Make the bird a different color, and put a high transparency on it and see how it goes? >_>
Possibly shrink bird, too, so the wings fit within the moon's confines. later in the week. O:>

[rowyn]

Angry bird edition!



Alinsa is unhappy with it because she thinks it's too busy and crowds the title lettering. Sigh. I kinda like this one, though.

[terrycloth.livejournal.com]

I like it, but I can see Alinsa's point about the lettering. Maybe if the bird was just a little smaller that would be enough? Or the lettering I guess, but then you'd have to worry about Kerning and stuff all over again and aiee.

[whitefangedwolf.livejournal.com]

I like it, too. It looks like a fantasy cover to me. I thought the phoenix rose was smaller, though, so maybe if the bird was scaled down a bit, it might feel less crowded to Alinsa?

Of course, there's always the option of saying it's a good enough cover and devising a pair of coordinated covers for the release of the next book. :P

[haikujaguar.livejournal.com]

*agrees with this option*

[mrw42.livejournal.com]

I like this one, too... it has more action than the posed couples and is more eye-catching. Maybe move them down a bit more, drop the tag-line and put your name at the bottom?

Or just make the lettering smaller?

[elbren]

2
the split contrast on the title of 1 is not good