Release Day and Covers and Stuff

So today the latest novel GOD OF RAIN is officially ‘out.’ Available ’most anywhere — your local bookstore could even order it for you (and that is fine with us — support local businesses!). Print and ebook, as usual. Try it, you’ll like it! (or any of my other books)

I’d like to say a few words about covers. Having an art background, I have designed my own from the start (and, I hope, improved to a high level of mediocrity). It should be obvious that I do not care for the generic ‘movie poster’ covers on many genre offerings, the girl, the soft focus background, all the cliches. I tend toward the abstract.

And I feel these are better at catching the reader’s/buyer’s eye. Large, bold, and simple elements. They don’t have to say anything about the text, just project a general sense about it, create a mood perhaps. This is all the more important online where the cover picture may be reduced to a thumbnail. I have used a silhouette approach on many of my cover designs; I am not particularly tied to it but want continuity between related titles in overall look, typefaces, and so on.

I am around half way through getting the narrative in shape for the next novel, another fantasy. More of a fantasy than some of my novels which I might better describe as ‘adventure with a fantasy element.’ It is a semi-sequel to THE EYES OF THE WIND, following one of the secondary characters from that book. Expect it to show up some time this summer; after that, who knows? I may be busy editing novels for other writers. I’ll also putter at getting another poetry collection together — no hurry on that one. Dates on all of this to be announced, sometime!