Evolution of Covers: The Secret War Files No.5

I'm a big believer that readers do judge a book by its cover, including e-books. Cover design isn't an after-thought. It's a necessity.


However, the biggest problem with the revised edition of The Secret War, is that there is absolutely no budget for a cover...


... which means I've had to design one myself.

~

My first attempt at designing a cover, using Photoshop, was your basic heroic, battlefield-type e-book, with the solitary sword stuck in the ground:

Which really didn’t tell you much at all about the book, other than there were swords in it.

So I went for a bronze cover next with stock images of mayhem and Hell:

Which I thought looked okay, and was closer to what I wanted, but you could tell I was using Bosch in the background and while he’s not a bad reference, it still didn’t get the mood of the book.

So I thought, why not do an original drawing? I have a sliver of talent, and lots of enthusiasm, and as long as I still remained objective then the endeavor would be worthwhile. 


For this third attempt at cover design, I used Artrage and bought two reference images from a stock-photo store. I used these as the basis for my “soldier in a tangle” and the “grisly inferno”, digitally painting in the other elements and inserting the titles and the Thirst eDition Fiction logo. It all came together as this:

And this is how it looks on the Thirst eDition Fiction site. But while I’ve been looking through the copy-edits, I’ve been tinkering with the cover again.

I’ve always been a fan of pulp fiction covers, with that aged, “loved-book” appearance, and I thought why not do an e-book cover the same way? The Secret War has definitely a pulpy feel to it – it’s essentially an adventure romp, not too dissimilar to the Edgar Rice Burroughs books, though a war fought on Earth between Angels and Daemons, and not between John Carter and the Martians. I thought that creating an e-book cover that looks pulpy, might not be a bad thing. 
So, again using Artrage, I began marking the cover, saturating the colours and ageing the picture to come up with this:

I’m still not sure whether to run with this cover or not. I’m sure there’ll be some people who think the pulp cover is pants, indeed might even say the same about the original covers, but those I have spoken to say the cover is no worse than the hardback or paperback editions at the very least.

So, I am a relieved professional writer, and a happy amateur artist - I don't think it turned out all that badly considering I'm not a trained graphic designer. 
But as with the writing, I'll let others be the judge of that ...