Cover Artist Praise

 Danielle Fine does most of my covers. It's a good thing, too, because on those forms for authors, when cover artists ask if you have a vision for the cover, I always do.

And it pretty much sucks. 

For Damned If He Does, I'd figured on some artsy cover because the hero is a frustrated artist. And maybe because I grew up with those kinds of covers out of the 70s and early 80s with geometric shapes in once bold colors that inevitably faded by about the third year the book had been on a shelf. 

Danielle kindly led me down the path of PNR reader expectations for this cover. And even if the cover seems to promise something the book doesn't deliver (I had concerns this cover conveyed a really hot read and well - the heroine is ace so while the story has its share of flames, they aren't the sexy kind, much) this book is already one readers either love or think should have been a short story. So eh. Point of interest. Danielle found the models for the cover and she NAILED that heroine.

She found the heroine image for Emissary, too. After I'd looked and looked and looked. This heroine isn't 20. She's at the end of her soldiering career and I really wanted someone who looked like she hadn't just skipped class at the local high school. 

I think my favorite thing about Danielle's work is that whether models match my particular internal vision or not, Danielle always manages to convey the mood of the story. Every single time.

The two Nightmare Ink covers were done by someone at Berkley - I'm ashamed to say I don't know by whom. Because both books are e-only, the covers are simpler and with the first book, the editor and marketing staff chose to go against the UF tide at the time. Most UF covers at the time these came out were barely clad heroines in ripped jeans and leather. Some gorgeous covers came out of that, but Isa wasn't that kind of bad ass heroine. She has her strengths, but fighting isn't one of them. At least, not physically. The only issue we had with the covers, in my opinion, was that the first book didn't actually convey any hint of magic. I think the Bound By Ink cover does a better job of that. It's more atmospheric, too. But this is the difference between publishing through a traditional publisher and publishing your own work. With a traditional publisher, covers are collaborative to a point. Past that point, you can't ask for further changes in the cover. On books you publish yourself, you can pursue THE perfect cover to the limits of your budget. I have a dream to be able to commission original artwork for book covers. Just because I love painterly covers and if I could pay an artist whose work I love - everyone wins.

Book Nostalgia

So this happened. 

It's a cover for a short story that I'd written some time ago for an anthology edited by former blog member James Ray Tuck Jr. I've had rights back for a bit and the story just sat there because I couldn't, for the life of me think what to do with it. 

Until I got tired of having dreams about pissed off lions. So I commissioned this lovely cover and published the story to Kindle Unlimited. Mostly because I'd never published anything there before. Look at me swimming in unfamiliar water. Really, I just adore the cover. So I had to show it off. Made by the fabulous Danielle Fine at By Definition.

As for book nostalgia, let's see if I can keep from repeating myself. I doubt I can. 

1. The Witch of Blackbird Pond - I got on a kick at one point of reading all of the Newberry award

winners as a kid. It paid off. This one stuck with me. And hey. Late grade school, when I picked the book up, alienation and learning to adapt were big themes. I got Kit. Still do.

2. The Island of the Blue Dolphins - Tough story, but gorgeous writing and that was enough for me. It's one of those books that haunts you and it made me start making up stories about how I'd have gone out there to get Karana off the island. There may have been pirate ships and bargains with the devil in some of those stories. So I guess my adult brain didn't fall far from the little kid apple tree.

This last one is a cheat because it's three books in a box set.

3. The Wizard of Earthsea - though, frankly, it looks like the little blue-gray box set I have doesn't exist any more. So no secret that I love Ursula K. Le Guin's work. I cop to reading this trilogy when I was far too young, probably, to appreciate it for anything more than the series of events and adventures that happened. Yet, as often happens with content that's packed far fuller than a reader is consciously aware, the stories and characters stuck in my head and kept unpacking bits of the subtext and layers I'd been too young to comprehend. That meant I could go back and reread the trilogy and have a new experience each time. So yeah. I read Le Guin to have my cranial capacity expanded as much as for the love of great story.

And now, back to the word mines. I have a thing to finish. And by all the gods, it will end before the end of this year or I'll die trying to wrap it. So let's do this thing.