Auto-art

Checking in to say still here, still working on Four Kings!

After coming across a few videos of people using AI art generators, I couldn't resist running some of my book titles through the prompts to see what I got.  I used https://creator.nightcafe.studio/ 

Here's the results!  Comment if you can guess which book titles they are!  [Or hover over the picture for the image name!]

I'd not be likely to use any of these as a cover, but some of them are very interesting!

Cover Reveal - The Book of Firsts

Because, as usual for me, I've produced a story that doesn't really fit the conventions of any genre (though I'm calling it New Adult because it involves 19 year-olds and a lot of sex), I've had trouble finding something that worked for my latest cover (for my pen name).

Fortunately I came across one I really liked over at http://goonwrite.com/index.htm, and so here at last is the cover of The Book of Firsts.

The book is in edits, and won't be out this month, but almost definitely in May.

And here is the (hopefully final) blurb:

The Book of Firsts

Three boys, the 'kings' of the school.  One cynical newcomer.  An outrageous competition.

 When Mika Niles overhears the details of "The Book of Firsts" she's at first bemused, then scornful, then intrigued.  Judging which of three very handsome young men is best at kissing, and...? 

 With no time in her final year for serious attachments, a series of lunchtime trysts is more than tempting – and an opportunity like this might never come her way again.  But this light-hearted game is also a scandalous secret, and few can play with fire and walk away unscathed.

Concept image for one of my covers

I think I shared a rough image a while ago of the rough layout I wanted for Caszandra.  Today I found the image I drew when commissioning Stray.  I sure placed a lot of importance on the backpack!  When I was a kid all backpacks were heavily annotated in this fashion...

Covers: Snug Ship and Filigree

Whoo!  New covers!  I am now fully covered out for my writing expectations well into 2017 (possible short stories aside).  This is the start of a new series, and I'm hoping to establish a 'series' look.  The artist is Andres Parada,

The only thing bigger than the world's first full virtual reality game is the mystery surrounding its origins. Who is the hidden figure behind Ryzonart Games? How was such a huge advance in technology achieved?

All Taia de Haas is interested in is getting her own virtual spaceship, but the very core of the game leads her inexorably on a dangerous quest for answers. When she uncovers the truth, she will have no future outside the Singularity Game.

The second book, Filigree, doesn't have a blurb yet (my gosh, it's going to be hard to write one without massive spoilers!).

Here's a close up of her face (and the reason she ends up called Filigree). :)

Lots of writing to do.  Still working on The Sleeping Life in the mornings and Snug Ship in the afternoon.

Cover reveal: Tangleways

This (Australian financial) year, a couple of Bookbub promos have seen a spike in my royalties that I suspect won't be repeated next year, so I have been busily upping my expenses (and thus lowering my taxes) by commissioning covers well in advance.

No-one is going to be surprised to discover that the Cwn Annwn are a factor in Tangleways after this cover. :D  I asked Julie to use salukis as the model - and this hound of death is just as gorgeous and strange as I hoped.  [DWJ's Dogsbody was one of the major inspirations for the Trifold world.]

The font layout was HARD for this one, because the background curves aren't symmetrical, but I think this works.  [I've taken to designing an ebook cover with larger fonts, and then a TPB later - where the edges will be cropped.]

WIP-wise, I've been bouncing around.  I've written one of three planned short stories for the trip to France that sits between Pyramids and Tangleways.  Actually, at around 7,500 words, it might just creep into novelette status - a first for me, and the next will probably be a little longer, though the third is just a shortish scene that could helpfully be titled "Ned's First Kiss".

Primarily, though, I've been working on The Sleeping Life and still expect it to be my next release, out toward the end of the year.

I've also been straying a little into my MMO game series, and have commissioned two covers for it (as part of my "OMG, I don't want to pay that much tax I'd rather buy covers" splurge).  After TSL has been released, I'll be working concurrently on both the Trifold and Singularity Game series, working my way through them.  Singularity is an open-ended series - no fixed end point.  I'm finding its worldbuilding endlessly entertaining, especially since people have been talking lately about utopias and the game in Snugships would probably qualify for one - though humanity is kinda on the level of chocobos in that universe.  [For those who don't get the Final Fantasy reference, that means we make great pets. ;) ]

Cover Reveal: The Sleeping Life

Another from the fabulous Julie Dillon, The Sleeping Life is the sequel to Stained Glass Monsters, and I just love the thematic echo in the swoony light and jewel tones of TSL's cover.  Due out toward the end of the year!

Fallon DeVries has a sister who lives only in his mind. Paying the price of magic gone wrong, Aurienne is trapped watching a world she cannot touch, only able to communicate with her brother while he sleeps.

And it's slowly killing him.

Fallon and Auri's best chance of untangling their lives is to win the help of a mage of unparalleled ability. But how can they ask for help when the warped spell prevents him from speaking?

Besides, Rennyn Claire - once the most powerful mage in the world - is a shadow of her former self: ill, injured and unlikely to recover unless she can hunt down the monster who once tried to make her his slave. But that Wicked Uncle is nowhere to be found, and other dangers, once slumbering dormant, are stirring..

The Pyramids of London - Cover reveal and genre questions

I've been looking forward to this cover for quite a while!  Another gorgeous Julie Dillon piece that I'm totally going to have to have as a print on my wall.

In a world where lightning sustained the Roman Empire, and Egypt's vampiric god-kings spread their influence through medicine and good weather, tiny Prytennia's fortunes are rising with the ships that have made her undisputed ruler of the air.

But the peace of recent decades is under threat.  Rome's automaton-driven wealth is waning along with the supply of their power crystals, while Sweden uses fear of Rome to add to her Protectorates.  And Prytennia is under attack from the wind itself.  Relentless daily attacks destroy crops, buildings, and lives, and neither the weather vampires nor Prytennia's Trifold Goddess have been able to find a way to stop them.

With events so grand scouring the horizon, the deaths of Eiliff and Aedric Tenning raise little interest.  The official verdict is accident: two careless automaton crafters, killed by their own construct.

Nothing could convince the Tenning children, or Aedric's sister Arianne, that the deaths were anything but murder.  They will stop at nothing to uncover what really happened.

Not even if, to follow the first clue, Aunt Arianne must sell herself to a vampire.

Here's the full image.  It's my first wrap-around cover (which I wanted because I wanted that sweep of city with the pyramids rising above it).

The genre of this one is going to be super tricky and I imagine a lot of people will pick it up thinking it's one thing and find it's another.  A lot of my books feature both adult and child POV characters, and this is no exception, swapping between Eluned (at the front in the picture) who is fifteen, and Arianne, who is in her thirties.  I don't consider it YA because it doesn't involve moving from childhood to adulthood in any particular way.

It's also not Steampunk, in that it's not a Victorian setting, and does not use Victorian clothing or social mores, but the tech level is similar.  It's both fantasy and science fiction, since the main plot of the series revolves around awakened gods and scientific change.  It is certainly alt-world, in that it started with our world and then had increasing points of divergence - and it's involving such an enormous amount of research, even if all I can research is the starting points before the divergence - so I'm going to think of it as alt world kitchen sink.

The release date will maybe be at the end of this year (all that research is slowing me down, although I'm collecting some lovely books like one which is maps of London through history).  If not this year, then early next year.  It's very hard to tell since I'll be overseas from August - November and expect that will impact my output rather significantly!

Bones of the Fair cover drafts

I've been experimenting with cover layouts using the not-quite-final art for Bones of the Fair (the art is about 90% done, but is still in draft* - it's another of Julie Dillon's pieces).  The various textures and fancy-work are all screen grabs of stock art I won't buy until I've decided on a final version, so it's fairly low quality with fragments of watermarks all over the place.

  
Happy for any recommendations or criticisms!

*Aristide and Aspen's hair colours are currently reversed.  The third figure is Gentian, the new palace gardener.

Cover Shuffle

One consistent piece of feedback I've received about Touchstone is that the covers of the individual books appear to be targetted to middle grade rather than young adult readers.  Since I really love those covers (which are tremendously appropriate to the content), I stuck with them for quite some time, but have started an experiment today to see whether the more 'floaty girl' type of cover will help sales.

These are the covers which will go up in the next day or so:

The "Caszandra" cover is a little dark in thumbnail , but I think the progression of the three covers is rather cool.

May make no difference at all, of course, but at least people will stop saying it looks middle grade.

[Will be keeping the paperbacks the way they are though.]

[Updated to change fonts.]

Hunting Cover

On the subject of covers, here's the cover of Hunting, my YA fantasy about a girl out to avenge her guardian's death.  Art by the fabulous Julie Dillon.

Currently working on...

I'm meant to be working on Hunting at the moment, but have been slightly derailed into a new project.

Madeleine Cost is working to become the youngest person ever to win the Archibald Prize for portraiture. Her elusive cousin Tyler is the perfect subject: androgynous, beautiful, and famous. All she needs to do is pin him down for the sittings.

None of her plans factored in the spires: featureless, impossible, spearing into the hearts of cities across the world – and spraying clouds of sparkling dust into the wind.

Is it an alien invasion? Germ warfare? They are questions everyone on Earth would like answered, but Madeleine has a more immediate problem. At Ground Zero of the Sydney spire, beneath the collapsed ruin of St James Station, she must make it to the surface before she can hope to find out if the world is ending.

Re-using the Blue Eagle Nebula on this cover. 

The book cover gives off a slightly literary feel, which is incorrect (unless I drastically change my writing style).  Won't be out this year, but I'll be working on and off on the first draft.

My l33t drawing skills

You've seen the cover of Caszandra - powerfully realistic, in a gorgeous burnt-Autumn world.

Now is revealed the incredible concept art I provided to the artist, Simon Dominic, to explain just what it was I wanted in the picture:

Amazing, no?

I am actually capable of a basic level of drawing, so long as it's on paper with a pencil, but I cannot for the life of me draw on the screen.  It is an entirely different skill set.

I draw a great deal less than I once did, and no longer draw character sketches of my characters.  Here's a sketch of my very first novel protagonist, from the never-again-to-see-the-light-of-day Talismans of Godshelm.

Hm, and one of the interesting people she knows...

Add caption

Me, procrastinating when I should be working on Gratuitous Epilogue?  Well, yeah. ;)

Still playing with covers

Just loved this picture.  And I guess it does suggest that there might, just maybe, be some kind of battle in the book somewhere...

Ebook v TPB Covers

One of the things it took me a few months to realise is that my ebook covers don't have to be the same as my trade paperback book covers.  Indeed, in some cases, it would be far better not, since one is designed to represent the book as a tiny thumbnail and the other is the place to indulge fancy games with fonts and rich, detailed images.

However, I wanted the covers to be visually linked, and have finally gotten around to playing with potential ebook cover versions for a couple which don't work well as tiny thumbnails.

The second version of these are much more readable in thumbnail.  I haven't decided whether to go ahead and change them, but it's definitely something I need to think about when preparing covers.

Cover Play Continued

Hm, for the moment going with option 3 for Touchstone.  Now I'm playing with the titling and placement of the stars.

And on an unrelated note, this week's Doctor Who was a return to good, solid story-telling.  Only real glitch was the complete emotional disconnect between this and the previous episode.

Compilation Covers

Now that I'm moving on to working on Caszandra, one thing I'm turning my mind to is a compilation of the entire Touchstone trilogy - for those who want their rambly SF diaries in one gi-normous block.

Now the covers I have for each of the individual books are painted covers which really match the content of the books - to me.  But I'm well aware that for the market these books are theoretically aimed at (Young Adult) they don't fit the current cover fashions at all (most people think they're aimed at younger readers, because that's where painted covers are being used at the moment).  So (since I'm too cheap to commission another painted cover, and it's going to be ebook only) the compilation is a marketing opportunity to direct the books at the audience which theoretically will most enjoy them (though Stray and Lab Rat appear to work equally well for any gender or age).

Anyone who has gone near Young Adult books lately will no doubt know that the current trend in covers is striking photographs of improbably beautiful girls in gorgeous floaty dresses, looking pensive or anguished (or, well, blank). 

While gorgeous floaty dresses don't quite feel SF to me, Cass does at least frock up a couple of time during her adventures.  Could I combine current trends in Young Adult covers with the book content of Space!  Ninjas!  Bubble worlds!?  I set out on a quest for a photograph of a space ninja in a floaty dress, but they seem a bit thin on the ground.  So I focused on the bubble worlds concept.

Which version works best for you?

The girl in the photo (before I dropped the Blue Eagle nebula on top of her) does in fact appear to be wearing a floaty dress.  So all elements met!

[What do you mean 'no ninjas'?  There's more than enough shadow there for any half-competent ninja to take full advantage of.]

Edit: Fourth option:

Cover Play

I've been playing with possible font/title placement for Voice of the Lost.  I always tend to want fancy squiggly fonts, but these are always unreadable in thumbnail.  You can see that some of these options would work fine for the cover of the trade paperback, but won't be much chop for an inch-high image.

Other variations:

I've also been playing with fonts for some placeholder covers for next year's books, until I get pictures for them.  The font on The Sleeping Life (you'll have to look at it in close up) is one I find absolutely gorgeous, but there's not many covers it would work on.

 

Colours

Still turning over possible font/colour combinations for Caszandra.  There's so many possibilities...