Book Cover Design Problems

With some books, like the one mentioned in the previous post, we know exactly what we want from our cover art. Sadly, the finished novella is not one of those books.

So we need a cover idea fast.

Let's look at the theme of the novel.

SPOILERS

Matilda loses her hand saving the king from an assassin.

Matilda loses her eye stopping a rampaging robot from killing one of her allies.

Matilda becomes the thing she hates most, a vampire, because it is the only way to stay alive long enough to save the world.

Matilda ********** **** ****** on board the ******* to stop the baddie from gaining world domination. Yeah, we're not giving that one away. Let's just say it is the biggest world-saving-sacrifice ever made in any work of fiction that we have ever read.

We have our theme. Kind of, it's hard to put into words.

A true hero is willing to sacrifice anything for their cause.

That sounds too much like a suicide bomber.

A true hero is willing to sacrifice anything for the greater good.

Cliched piss.

A true hero must be willing to sacrifice everything if that's what's required.

Awesome. We like it.


The books USP (Unique Selling Point) is that it costs $1. Yes, I'm undercutting other indie authors. Yes, $1 is very cheap for a 50,000 word novella. Yes, some people will think its some kind of a con, or the book is shit. We're cool with that.

We have a plan.

The genre is steam and sorcery. It is steampunk, and it is sword and sorcery. This needs to be conveyed in the cover.

Currently, the title is Invictus.

In a similar vein to the James Bond novels and to avoid similarities with the movie Invictus, it will actually be called...

Matilda Raleigh: Invictus

This needs to go on the cover.

We're making progress, actually. We have decided exactly what type needs to go on the book cover. What that leaves is the image. A steampunk sword and sorcery image that shows the theme of heroic sacrifice.

Wow, this is not easy.