On Cover Art

When I first began my publishing venture, I found that one of the most exciting aspects of the experience was that I could design my own cover art. I knew exactly what should be on the cover: something of significance within the book. The artwork should be influenced by an entity or event from the story.

Okay, that really goes without saying; I've always appreciated cover art that is subtle and classy, more than something that is really "in your face". Of course, "in your face" is easy to get right, subtle isn't.

I decided that I should pick an element from THE HONOUR OF THE KNIGHTS that would be most memorable, both to the reader and to the characters themselves. I chose to put the lonely grey planet, Arlos, on the cover. I didn't think there really needed to be much else (space is mostly black after all), so the planet hung there against a solid black background, with only my name and the title of the novel for company. I thought it fit the mood of the planet and the events rather well: when the White Knights travel to it to complete a mission that is suddenly sprung upon them, they cannot help but feel a sense of foreboding about the entire region. The events that then take place only compound this further and it is at this point that the Knights' worst fears are realised.

Whilst I thought the cover was quite austere (and a few other did too), I was strongly advised against it. The general reaction was that it wouldn't sit on a shelf of a bookstore very well. It looked more like an astrology text book than a space opera. Some urged me to put a spaceship of some kind on the front, others suggested that I re-think it and add some colour, and one suggested that I just give up completely because I was obviously crap at art (yeah, I'm no da Vinci by any stretch of the imagination, but at least the planet looked okay!).

After a lot of tinkering around in Gimp and reading tutorials about how to make a good looking astral scene, I came up with a better looking cover. This one was greeted with a much more positive reception than the previous: it was a lot more eye catching and made people want to take a look.

When it finally went through distribution it looked good on Amazon, Waterstone's, and Barnes and Noble, much better than the previous would have done. It impressed a number of the staff in Waterstone's and other bookstores I visited too.

When it comes to creating your own art it may be tempting to just take a photo, stick some text on it, declare it done, and stick a fork in it. But 9 times out of 10 (that's generous too), it will look just like that: i.e. - someone took a photo, loaded up MS Paint, wrote My Book By A N Author on it in a bland font, and left it like that. Since the cover of a book is typically the first thing a prospective buyer will see, it is essential that it looks great. It is likely you have bought a book in the past (or at least know someone who has) on the strength of the cover art. I know I have.

Knowing this, publishers spend a great deal of time getting the cover right, and with that in mind, I took several months tweaking and thinking about what should go into the art of HONOUR OF THE KNIGHTS. Every day I would look at it and see if I still liked it. I read the blurb a number of times to make sure it correctly delivered the feel of the story. After a while I was satisfied I had it right and stopped tweaking the text.

In an ideal world, I would have had the Knights themselves on the cover, but my own drawing skills defeated me on that one. And knowing that my own efforts would be extremely poor (and therefore have a negative effect), I opted to push the idea aside. The current one is good enough.