Don’t Judge a Book by Its Cover?
While the old adage might be true, the cold reality is that covers sell books. A cover is a critical marketing tool, and a bad one can become a book killer—whatever the merit of the story inside. So, it was with trepidation that I tackled finding a cover for my debut novel Beneath a Sun Deprived Sky.
My editor Britta Jensen recommended talented cover designer and illustrator Sarah J Coleman (Inkymole) whom she’d hired for the cover of her own upcoming novel Orphan Pods.
Initial Sketches: With only my book blurb and a few paragraphs of character and world description, Sarah began generating concepts. I was struck by how much work goes into images that get discarded.
Some of Sarah’s Initial Sketches
I felt honestly overwhelmed. Such wonderfully creative concepts, yet none quite fit the kind of cover I envisioned. Fortunately, I had Britta’s guidance during the process, and she explained how this was only round one: Sarah would springboard off these images to create new configurations of style, design, and color.
For the second round, we narrowed the concepts down to the two on the left (above) for Sarah to refine.
Concept One Variations
The angled perspective of the buildings, backlit by the two moons, gives the images dimensionality and texture. In three versions, Sarah incorporates into the title an element from my fictional cityscape (miners’ lights used for makeshift decoration).
I loved the concept but had to consider how the cover communicates genre to potential readers.
Sci-fi – check!
Secondary-world space opera – check!
Love story …?
Concept Two Variations
This concept hits all three genre elements. The silhouetted figures subtly suggest a love story without misleading readers to expect a traditional “high spice” romance.
This phase was stressful! All the options seemed perfect, but I had to choose. Thank goodness for friends and family who weighed in! They unanimously choose the leftmost design with its bright colors and “miners’ light” font—the boldest, most original choice.
Final tweaks: Britta and I worked with Sarah to incorporate elements we liked from the different options. I had a hard time letting go of the detailed buildings Sarah sketched for option one, and she graciously agreed to use the image for the back cover.
Final Cover
Trusting the creative process: Ultimately, cover design is a collaboration between author and artist. Sarah brought her own unique artistry to this cover and gave me something very different than my vague imaginings but far more compelling.