[Northern pen]

Starting to dial in now. Choosing font style and color...

Edited for better pic size and new images.

 

[Northern pen]

Additional info:

genre: Fantasy, YA

Blurb:

Soron and Velaina left the royal life, its intrigues and dangers, behind for the small village of Elderwood.  For fourteen years they live a peaceful and simple life, then one day Natthan shows signs of magic ability and all their plans are thrown into question. Before they can share their secret pasts with their son, a tragic series of missteps by an ambitious duke leads to the slaughter of the village. Natthan survives, but both his parents are slain by soldier’s swords.

Devastated by loss, Natthan heads to the wilds to mourn. When he finally returns he finds a mysterious uncle waiting for him. Natthan joins his uncle Verin on a quest to complete the mission the duke failed to do, track down the bandits plaguing the area.

Natthan's quest finds him pitted against deadly bandits, vicious mythical creatures and a northern king who will either kill him or call him grandson. Then he faces the ultimate test, will his swordsmanship and new found magical skills be enough to rescue his friend Ella from the dastardly duke...

 

[Sever Bronny]

Heyas Robyn

Any chance we can see how the cover looks in Amazon thumbnail size?

 

[Northern pen]

Heyas Robyn

Any chance we can see how the cover looks in Amazon thumbnail size?

As soon as I figure out how I will

I put it in my profile pic to get better look.

 

[Sever Bronny]

Here ya go, close enough

 

[Sever Bronny]

Hmm, cover proportions seem too large?

Also, love the cover itself, but none of the typography

 

[Northern pen]

Hmm, cover proportions seem too large?

Also, love the cover itself, but none of the typography

I not too worried about typography... Except that too change once someone who knows what they doing gets ahold of it.. I don't have very good photo editing skills so lots of room to improve. I just want to have a solid idea of what I want before I spend any money on getting it nailed down.

 

[Sever Bronny]

Ah, gotcha

 

[Northern pen]

First post edited with smaller pics and new images.. Any suggestions ?

 

[Guest]

Make sure your font and colors don't disappear into the background. Also, unless you have a large following,consider putting the title of the book on the upper part of the book and your name on the lower part. Right now, you have too much text crowding the lower part.

Also, I think your blurb gives too much information about the book. Think hook more than summary. Study blurbs of books in your genre to see what others have done.

I like the picture.  Best of luck.

 

[NoCat]

The art is okay, but too wide. The font work is not good at all.

 

[emilynemchick]

The image on the far right looks pretty great to me. I like the green tint and the horse figure in the background. The text also looks best to me in that one. The title stands out well and the font for the author name looks very professional. This is just my personal opinion as a reader. I am no cover expert but I would buy it! My only issue is the 'book one' gets a bit lost.

I'm sure you have this in hand already, but make sure to put your blurb (and book) through an editor before you publish.

 

[mythsnake]

The middle one (and your avatar) were the most legible to me. I might suggest adding a drop shadow behind your lettering, to make it stand out better, particularly on the author name, which sort of blends into the background halfway through. I think the darkened art works better than the light art. I also like the author font on the last two better than on the rest.

 

[mbroadway]

This is a difficult cover, since you have so many elements: The title, the series, the book number, author name.

I agree with others about the proportion. You should be at a 1 to 1.6 ratio. (I usually use 4 x 6 inches).

One thing you could do to make the title type pop more would be to put a linear gradient below it with the solid portion at the bottom and fade to nothing at the top. That will keep the brightness of the sunlight at the top. You could also add a black stroke (1 or 2 points) outline to the type. Or you could do an emboss effect on the title that would make it pop a bit more.

I'm assuming you're working in Photoshop?

I hope that helps.

 

[Bluebonnet]

I think covers 3 and 4 look best, as far as the title being legible. Maybe the horse could be lightened up some so it would show up more? I didn't realize there was a horse until another poster mentioned it.

The blurb is much better now.

 

[Northern pen]

Thanks for the feedback everyone. I'm starting to get closer to something I can be happy with.

I'm assuming your working in photoshop

No, I wish. I using a free program, but starting to figure out things better.

The Blurb is much better now

Thanks Bluebonnet, it still needs a little cleaning up but its much closer now.

 

[Heather Hamilton-Senter]

Like the image last posted but the titling is awkward. Try Book One of the Stoneblood Saga centered across the bottom. Or if you like it bigger, do The Stoneblood Saga across the bottom and then Book One under the right side of the title.

Limit the differences in your fonts - do the Saga name in the same font and capitals as the author name.

And I don't think overlapping the words in the main title helps. Experiment with centering instead of left justifying or something else. I understand you're limited with the program you are using, but you should be able to re-arrange.

Try using capitals for the title as well but the first letter in a larger size. Try another font with a bit more interest to it. The image is fairly plain. I can tell it's a forest, but can't see any details - so you may be able to get away with some more drama in the title font.

Keep playing a bit!

EDITED TO ADD - sorry, didn't catch the post above that you aren't worrying about the typography at this point. Nevermind 

 

[AmpersandBookInteriors]

Have you tried repositioning the text a bit to the right (it seems off center to me at least) and then making the text a tad bit more in the red spectrum? Not bright red, but tinted a little closer to it than the yellow spectrum.

I like what you did with the O in Son and S in Soron, and that you focused on those words more than The and of. Perhaps The and of could be the same size, though?

If you feel that the font disappears a little when it gets too small, you might want to try a font where the contrast between thin and thick strokes aren't as contrasted as it is here. But it may look fine! Not quite sure how it would appear.

Overall, I like it! Especially the background image. Very visual. 

 

[AmpersandBookInteriors]

EDITED TO ADD - sorry, didn't catch the post above that you aren't worrying about the typography at this point. Nevermind

Err-oops! Missed that too <_<

 

[Annabel Chant]

I know it's fantasy, but this is just something that...rankles with me. It's not to do with the cover, but the name Natthan (this is why I said I know it's fantasy). I read another thread about this (when you were looking for blurb input - I didn't comment then, because I'm hopeless at blurbs - but I'm still finding I feel the same).

To me, it just looks like you don't know how to spell Nathan. I'm sure you do, but the way you've spelt it, I'd be wondering all the time how to pronounce it  I hope you don't mind me saying this. It's just that, as a reader, it would annoy me (and it may just be me, but I do enjoy fantasy books - my favourite author ever is a fantasy author). It may be a foreign (UK here) or alternative spelling, but it just looks...off but not quite fantastical enough to be fantasy, if that makes sense.

Just trying to help - feel free to ignore, obviously