It’s hard to believe it’s been more than four years since I started releasing that series. Which means it’s been five years since I started drawing the covers. A lot has changed since then!
I think I’ll always love the illustrated covers–they’re some of the best work I’ve ever drawn. But one thing that’s always changing is cover conventions. Even back when I started, epic fantasy and romantic fantasy were already leaning away from having characters or illustrations on the covers. Over the past several years, everything I would have considered a comparable series has had a cover change–or two, in some cases–and all of them went toward typography-based or iconography-based imagery. The end result is that eventually, illustrated covers no longer look like they belong.
A lot of people hear that and say, “Well, it’s good to stand out and be different.” But in practice, it’s a double-edged sword. Yes, a book that does something visually different stands out–but the end result isn’t being eye-catching in a good way. Instead, it looks like it doesn’t belong on the shelf where it’s been placed. So what’s the real result?
People look at it and say, “Oh, I love YA fantasy!”
Because YA continues to have a lot of character-oriented covers… so it works fine for Spectrum Legacy, which is an epic fantasy with teenaged characters. But Snakesblood isn’t YA, won’t pass for YA with all the characters being in their twenties and thirties, and people expecting YA won’t be happy when it’s an adult epic fantasy with strong romantic elements.
So we try something new. It was tough to choose a direction to go because the series is six books, which heavily limited my options for making covers that tie together. It was also hard because I’m honestly not a huge fan of iconography in book covers. I am a big believer in giving my work the best chance I can, though, so for a bit, we’ll be giving them a try… with a caveat, which I’ll explain below.
Once I finished the first, I shared it with a little focus group, and they all gave it their stamp of approval. So, here we go: The new look for the Snakesblood Saga, and the fruit of many, many hours of design effort, trial, and error.
Now, the caveat: The new covers are, for now, ebook-edition only.
Why?
Because these books are printed through Ingram, and it costs a lot to change paperback covers. I’m all for updating the paperbacks to match if people love the new covers and want them, but it’s something that will happen a little later down the road. Most likely after the last two Spectrum Legacy books go out, because I love those books, but big fat epic fantasies are expensive to produce.
So the paperbacks will be keeping the original illustrated covers for a bit longer.
What do you think of the new look for this series?