Monday, February 6, 2017
Art of Cover Art
Art of Cover Art
People say it all the time: Cover art sells books.
When I paid Carl Graves $400 to do the cover for Magnificent Guns of Seneca 6, it wasnt because I think hes a nice guy. He IS a nice guy, but thats beside the point. I did it because I want to do JA Konrath numbers.
It forced me to take a long, hard look at some of my other titles and come to the realization that they werent selling well because their cover art stunk. Not that I hadnt tried, and yes, they had kind of a pulpy appeal, but they werent polished (in any sense of the word) and people did not buy the books at the rate I want.
The other thing I was interested in doing was creating a uniformity in the Superbia series. Unfortunately, to do that, I had to deep six Glendon Haddixs original Superbia cover (that cost over $200). And losing it wasnt a slam against GH. Its an investment in the future of the series, and a bridge between the first book and the sequels.
The covers are slowly (slooooowly) making their way onto If you want to take a sneak peak at them, I set up a Pinterest page here. Take a look and tell me which one is your favorite.
To give you an example of the changes, heres a few before and afters:
became
became
became 
When I paid Carl Graves $400 to do the cover for Magnificent Guns of Seneca 6, it wasnt because I think hes a nice guy. He IS a nice guy, but thats beside the point. I did it because I want to do JA Konrath numbers.
It forced me to take a long, hard look at some of my other titles and come to the realization that they werent selling well because their cover art stunk. Not that I hadnt tried, and yes, they had kind of a pulpy appeal, but they werent polished (in any sense of the word) and people did not buy the books at the rate I want.
The other thing I was interested in doing was creating a uniformity in the Superbia series. Unfortunately, to do that, I had to deep six Glendon Haddixs original Superbia cover (that cost over $200). And losing it wasnt a slam against GH. Its an investment in the future of the series, and a bridge between the first book and the sequels.
The covers are slowly (slooooowly) making their way onto If you want to take a sneak peak at them, I set up a Pinterest page here. Take a look and tell me which one is your favorite.
To give you an example of the changes, heres a few before and afters:
became
became
became 
I have no idea if Im going to hit my million dollar goal for 2012 or not, but damn it if I dont, Im going down swinging.
Available link for download
